A song from a stage musical or film musical written for the show but unused or dropped from the production.

The melody to the song can sometimes be found in background music, especially dance music. Often these become "trunk" songs that composers later salvage for reuse in later productions.

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Like the Image Song in anime, this can add depth to a character for those who know the song and its relation to the show.

In the past, the Cut Song tended to be left off the original cast album even if it had already been recorded, so as not to give the impression that it was still part of the show. Nowadays, the Cut Song is a common bonus track on both new and reissued cast recordings.

Since movie versions of stage musicals inevitably cut one or more songs from the original, cut songs from movie musicals should not be listed unless one or more of the following apply:

they were written specifically for the movie

they were filmed, but the footage was deleted (and, in all too many cases, subsequently lost)

they remain on the soundtrack in some vestigial form

Video game tracks are an interesting case; songs that cannot be heard in-game without hacking also double as Dummied Out.

Examples:

Creators With Their Own Pages:

The Italian version of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, which used all-new songs (usually Suspiciously Similar Song versions), cut plenty of songs out of the series, replacing them usually with previously established counterparts to other songs, but sometimes with speeches or even by cutting out the parts where you can see the characters singing. It's especially bad in season two, when only one new song was allowed to be made out of the thirteen additions to the original score.

The dubbed version of Fullmetal Alchemist replaced the first and third intros with the second and fourth ones, respectively. At least the ones that aired on [adult swim] did; the original songs are present on the DVD releases. According to Word of God, Funimation did this on purpose so the two musical groups could gain more western attention.

Once the dub reached season 4, Funimation had to replace the ending theme "Mirai Koukai" (ending 14) with "Eternal Pose" (ending 15). This was apparently due to licensing issues Tackey & Tsubasa. Even then, "Crazy Rainbow" from the same artist was present during Season 5.

Similar to it, the Funimation dub of the movie One Piece Film: Strong World had to replace its ending theme, "fanfare" by Mr.Children, with a (very unfitting) track of similar length from the OST.

The simulcast was unable to use the Punk Hazard-centric opening "Hands Up!", continuing to use "We Go!" until Dressrosa.

The soundtrack for Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven's Door (The Movie) has a song called "No Reply". It's a beautiful ballad that details how a man commits suicide by jumping to his death, and only in mid-fall, after it is too late to go back, does he realize that the woman he loved was the entire reason for his existence. Every other song on the soundtrack plays in the movie, including numerous unreleased songs, but not that one. It is a rather obvious case of Lyrical Dissonance, but that never stopped other songs on the soundtracks from playing at various points in the series where the lyrics or tone of the song didn't quite fit into the scene.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex has four opening songs: "Inner Universe", "Get 9", "Rise", and "CHRisTmas in the SiLent ForeSt" and four individual animations to accompany each song. 4 openings for a 52 episode series, changing every 13 episodes— something not uncommon to see in anime. The US release of the series only uses "Inner Universe" for the first season, and "Rise" for the 2nd. While "CHRisTmas in the SiLent ForeSt" is played at the end of the final episode, "Get 9" is nowhere to be heard. The special features on the DVDs didn't even include those openings to be viewed by the audience, so the only place you can see them is online. On top of that, the Japan-exclusive ''Smooth in the Shell" OST includes 49 minutes of music that may or may not be heard at some point in the series. The entire OST is one large song file. No breaks, and no names for each song segment. One of the songs heard is a full length rap song that is never heard anywhere in the series.

Other cut songs from End include a funeary requiem version of "Thanatos: If I Can't Be Yours" to be played during Asuka's death, an intense, jazzy version of "BORDERLINE CASE" probably intended to play during Instrumentality, a macho-sounding "Dignified" battle theme, and finally, a peaceful "Theme of Love" suggesting a happier ending was at one point planned. Good luck finding the other songs outside of a handful of seeders on torrent sites.

The film fell victim to a form of this. No songs were cut completely, but were shortened due to Executive Meddling from the Weinstein Company, who thought that audiences would get impatient with the extra stuff in the songs, which ruined a lot of Back Story and some great lyrics. Specifically, the following was cut, and can be viewed as a Bonus Feature on the DVD, and in their entirety on the soundtrack:

A second verse from Red's "I Want" Song, "Great Big World", which would have fallen between the shot of Red's bike being carried across a river and her looking out over a valley.

A section of "Be Prepared," Japeth's musical number. The cutting goes like this (italicized part is cut):

Japeth: (singing) 37 years ago, a witch done put a spell on me...Red Puckett: Yes, I know. Japeth:...a spell where when I'm talking, I'm singing it with glee But when you're always singing it, you've got to live alone That's why I made this mountain shack my homeRed Puckett: That's great, but could you just help me find my Granny's house? Japeth:When you're on the mountain, you've got no guaranteesThat life will turn up roses, or turn out as you pleasebut when you're on the mountain, there's lots to be a-feared That's why this here old mountain goat's prepared

Speaking of "Be Prepared," the soundtrack version depicts Japeth running through the chorus before the musical interlude to him showing off his various horns.

The second verse of Kirk's "Schnitzel song". This apparently would have happened right before the shots of Kirk returning to discover that his truck has been raided and cannibalized. Unfortunately, it means we don't know why the kids are all throwing their schnitzel sticks into the air like graduated college students throwing mortarboards. The cut footage reveals that they were watching a small tap-dance routine.

"Brothers Under The Sun", which appears on the soundtrack and the end of the credits fully and with words, but only the melody is heard in the movie proper.

Also, there was "Where Do I Go From Here?" which made it onto some soundtracks as a bonus song.

Coraline was originally intended to have significantly more musical numbers, and They Might Be Giants wrote several songs for the film. However, the film's tone was later changed to be more melancholy and all but one of the songs were taken out of the film (the remaining song being "Other Father's Song"). "Careful What You Pack", originally written for the movie, was worked onto their 2007 album, The Else. All the other songs will be released sooner or later.

Recess: School's Out was going to include a new original song by They Might Be Giants to play when T.J.'s riding his bike by himself after his friends leave for camp. To keep with the film's '60s music theme, the song was replaced with "One" by Three Dog Night.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut originally had "Something Must Be Done" for the adults planning the war with Canada, and then a reprise for the kids planning to stop them. These were replaced by "Blame Canada" and "What Would Brian Boitano Do?," respectively.

Mumfie's Quest had the Villain Song "I Must Have My Night", a song sung by the Admiral called "Admiral's Song" and "Pigs Can Fly". The latter did show up in Mumfie's White Christmas with different lyrics.

My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)'s original opening theme, "Equestria", was swapped out at the last minute for a pony version of "We Got The Beat", but still made it onto the soundtrack album, and its instrumental appears in the credits suite.

"The Jitterbug" may be the most famous example of a movie musical Cut Song. The audio has survived, but the original footage has not, aside from a few short clips (a common fate for Cut Songs from old movie musicals). According to Margaret Hamilton, the song was cut to avoid dating the film via reference to the "jitterbug" fad. Many stage versions, as well as an ice show tour in The '90s, reinstated the number. It was also included in the 50th anniversary VHS extras.

There was also meant to be a Dark Reprise of "Over the Rainbow" sung when Dorothy is trapped in the witch's castle. It had to be recorded live on set and reduced the cast and crew to tears.

"Over the Rainbow" itself nearly became a cut song, since producers initially could not figure out why a child would be singing in a drab farmyard. They wisely chose to leave it in.

There was a deleted Reprise Medley of "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" ("Hail Hail The Witch is Dead") and "The Merry Old Land of Oz" following the Wicked Witch of the West's death. Instead, the film cuts straight from the Witch's castle to the Wizard's throne room. Like The Jitterbug, the audio survived, but not the footage. "Hail Hail" and "Over the Rainbow (Reprise)" do appear in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 2011 stage adaptation, though.

There were others cut early on-"Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" was to be a full song, and "If I Only Had the Nerve" and "If I Only Had a Brain" were longer. The longer footage of "Brain" does still exist and later became a bonus feature on various home video releases.

The Marx Brothers movie A Day at the Races is another instance: "A Message from the Man in the Moon", which was to have been sung in the film by Allan Jones, remained only in the instrumental party music and a couple of lines sung by Groucho Marx in the movie's Reprise Medley finale.

A song was cut and replaced with a second round of "Can't Buy Me Love". Which song is uncertain, but general consensus is that the cut song is "I'll Cry Instead". That song is in at least one trailer, though. "You Can't Do That" was also cut from the final concert scene, but footage exists on the DVD and various making-of specials.

"I'll Cry Instead" was used as a prelude, illustrated with stills and behind-the-scenes photos, for its first theatrical re-release following John Lennon's death. This prelude was included in the original VHS release. Interestingly, the rare longer version of the song is used.

"I Call Your Name" was supposed to be in the film and the fourteenth song on the album, but was cut for sounding too similar to "You Can't Do That" (consensus amongst fans would be that it doesn't). This is why the UK LP only has 13 tracks. It was included on the American album The Beatles' Second Album, and soon after in the UK on the Long Tall Sally EP. An interesting thing is, The Beatles scheduled another session to record a 14th track, but Ringo Starr was ill in hospital, so they didn't record it. This session did result in an amusing demo of "No Reply" (which features John and Paul bursting out laughing at some lyrical mistakes they make), a demo of "It's for You" recorded so Cilla Black could see how the song went, as well as the quickly forgotten song "You Know What To Do" (with session drummer Jimmie Nichol).

"Is This What Feeling Gets?" was written and recorded for the film adaptation of The Wiz; it comes after Dorothy first "meets" the Wiz and learns she has to go after Evillene. It was cut (though a prequel, "Can I Go On Not Knowing?", shows up early on), but it's on the soundtrack album and is THE big motif in the instrumental score. Given that the finished movie is two-plus hours as it is, it may have been cut for time reasons.

In the film adaptation of Kiss Me Kate, "Another Op'nin', Another Show" and "Bianca" are not sung, but can be heard in instrumental versions. (Arguably, "Bianca" deserves to be cut, having originally been written to spite the original actor playing Bill, who obnoxiously demanded an Act Two showpiece.)

Esther Williams was supposed to sing "On a Slow Boat to China" in Neptune's Daughter. Apparently, the censors objected to the lyrics, so the movie introduced the song in an instrumental version only.

"Let's Go West Again" was removed from the film version of Annie Get Your Gun; Judy Garland had already recorded it for the soundtrack when she was replaced by Betty Hutton, whose rendition of the song was also recorded but unused. The song had actually been written for the stage version of Annie Get Your Gun, but never had a spot in the script.

Little Shop of Horrors: The original darker ending had "Don't Feed the Plants" as hundreds of giant Audrey IIs destroyed notable cities which was from the musical's ending, but test audiences objected to it and a more upbeat wrapup was shot and used. The 2012 Director's Cut DVD completely restores the original ending. Meanwhile, the song "The Meek Shall Inherit" was heavily truncated. Also written for the film was the Villain Song "Bad", the predecessor to "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space", and "Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon", which would have played over the end credits.

In the year and a half between the filming of Summer Holiday and its (unsuccessful) release, lots of footage was removed, and said footage was subsequently destroyed in a fire. The deletions included four songs: "Never Again", "Omar and the Princess", "Wish I Had a Braver Heart" and "Spring Isn't Everything".

The film version of Mamma Mia! cut out "The Name of the Game" (shown as a deleted scene at the DVD), which was in the actual Broadway show. It also scrapped out of the original script three songs: "Under Attack", "One of Us" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You", the last one being replaced with "When All Is Said and Done".

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again removes "I Wonder (Departure)", sung by Young Donna and the Dynamos. The song is on the soundtrack and the scene is available on the home release.

The sequel also includes "Knowing Me, Knowing You" but the in-film version removes the verses performed by Amanda Seyfried and Pierce Brosnan (these are on the soundtrack).

In Casper, the ghostly trio was originally going to have a fun jazzy number called "Lucky Enough to Be a Ghost", with very risqué lyrics ("I binge and I purge/I'm always obsessing/I'm an alcoholic, shopaholic inter-cross-dresser!"), but was cut when it was too expensive to animate. In the follow-up animated series, a similar, watered down song was used.

"Halloween" was cut from the film adaptation of RENT, but appears on the DVD as a deleted scene. Many other songs were replaced by dialogue or eliminated entirely in the film.

The film version of Lady in the Dark cut out nearly all of the musical numbers, including the one that has the most bearing on the whole plot and ties the whole thing together: "My Ship". Reportedly this was a due to the producer of the film hating Kurt Weill (the composer) and the song itself. All that remained of the original score in the end were "The Saga of Jenny" and "Girl of the Moment".

"Hey Bulldog" by The Beatles was originally written for the Yellow Submarine, but ended up being cut (at least from US prints - it was included in BBC screenings) and was only released on the soundtrack album, despite being insanely good. The song was added back for the 30th anniversary version of the film.

The Movie Bonus Song "Learn to Be Lonely" from The Phantom of the Opera (played over the end credits) originated as "No One Would Listen", a new song for the Phantom that would have appeared after the discussion between Raoul and Madame Giry; it had completely different lyrics. It was filmed but cut; the two-disc DVD release includes the scene as a bonus feature. Had the song remained, the melody's appearance in the film's underscore would have made a lot more sense.

The Glenn Miller band can be heard performing an instrumental version of "At Last" in Sun Valley Serenade. They reintroduced the song in Orchestra Wives, this time with the vocal intact.

"Necessity" was removed from the film version of Finians Rainbow almost certainly to shorten its running time, as the song was recorded for the soundtrack and its melody can be heard in the background music just after where it would have been sung.

"Ain't It the Truth" was supposed to have appeared twice in Cabin in the Sky. Both versions were cut, leaving Louis Armstrong without a musical number in the film. The footage of Lena Horne singing it in a bathtub was preserved because it was recycled in a short film, and an instrumental version underscores the scene where Georgia seduces Joe, but only the audio survives of the production number featuring Armstrong's voice and trumpet. Horne got to revive her Bad Girl Song in the Broadway musical Jamaica.

Ali Hakim's song "It's a Scandal" and Jud Fry's song "Lonely Room" were cut from the film version of Oklahoma!. The former can be heard in the score, and the latter would have given the film a LOT more depth.

A sheet music anthology of Leslie Bricusse songs discussed two films he worked on that were written as musicals but weren't filmed as such due to Executive Meddling.

Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) had most of its songs dropped or reduced to background material because the producers didn't think a musical would sell in the mid-1980s; only "Patch Natch!" was performed onscreen, due to it being justified in-story as part of a TV ad. A fan site has a page focusing on the songs and their fates.

Hook (1991) was de-musicalized due to concerns over budget and length. The only numbers sung onscreen at all are "We Don't Wanna Grow Up" (as part of a School Play) and "When You're Alone" (a lullaby Maggie sings to comfort herself in Neverland). One of the dropped songs, "Childhood", is a big motif in the underscore. Bricusse included the original version in the book, explaining that everyone was crushed to lose that song, but they couldn't figure out a way to perform it onscreen if the movie wasn't a musical.

"Is It a Crime?" was edited out of the film version of Bells Are Ringing, though the film of the Deleted Scene survives. "Hello, Hello There" was reduced to background music and a few lines of dialogue which now fail to cue the expected Crowd Song. Only a few lines and steps of "Mu-Cha-Cha" were featured in the film.

"Strip Polka" was written for the film Navy Blues, but the Hays Office wouldn't allow it to be used.

The film version of Hair is an odd variant of this trope. Several songs —"I Believe in Love", "Going Down", "Abie Baby/Fourscore", "Frank Mills", and "What a Piece of Work is Man" — were recorded, but cut for pacing and runtime. They were included in the original soundtrack album, but cut from the 1990 re-issue. Instrumental versions of "Don't Put It Down" and "Somebody to Love" are used as background music for several scenes. The odd part is that three songs on the soundtrack — "Air", "My Conviction" and "Don't Put It Down" — were recorded by the cast exclusively for the soundtrack. Not because they were intended for the film, but because they were in the original play.

Bluto's song "I'm Mean" from Popeye is cut from every UK release for unknown reasons. It may have something to do with the UK distributor being Disney while the US distributor is Paramount Pictures.

There was at least six additional songs written for the film by Dr. Seuss that didn't make the final cut, and only survive on old production bootlegs. e.g. We Are the Guards: We are Two Terrible Twins With a Terrible Siamese Beard. / Don't get fresh with us now, Or you will get choked by the beard of the twins with the Siamese beard, with a terrible twin on each end.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks was shortened from its original 139-minute running length by cutting several of the Sherman Brothers' songs - "A Step in the Right Direction", "Nobody's Problems", "With a Flair" and part of "Portobello Road". All but "A Step in the Right Direction" were restored for the film's DVD release.

While present in all stage versions, Brad's ballad "Once in a While" was removed from the film for pacing reasons. The scene has been included has a bonus feature on several home video releases, though never officially inserted back into the film. (Fans have done this themselves, even surprising theater audiences with the scene... and the audience reaction is almost always negative. It's a complete snore of a song.) The same situation hit the 2016 remake, with the scene being included on the home release.

Additionally, American-made prints are missing most of "Super Heroes", as US distributors thought it made the ending too depressing. All that remains is the Crim's verse and one really bad jump-cut.

A notable soundtrack example: Christopher Nolan wanted "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead to close out Memento, but the licensing fee would have increased the (already quite low) budget by too much.

The 1968 film Oliver! cuts quite a few songs from the musical, including "That's Your Funeral" and Bill Sikes' "My Name", though the latter does appear as an instrumental.

Anthony Newleys notorious autobiographical X-rated musical Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness had "Oh, What a Son of a Bitch I Am", which appears on the soundtrack album but was cut from the film.

Cut from We're Not Dressing was "It's the Animal in Me", a big production number featuring Ethel Merman, who was otherwise underused in the film. The cut song and footage wound up in The Big Broadcast of 1936, which otherwise did not feature Merman at all.

The in-story musical numbers in Labyrinth all run longer on the soundtrack album to varying extents, but none more so than "Chilly Down", which has both an opening verse and a bridge that don't appear in the finished film — not surprising since it's performed by a Wacky Wayside Tribe. (As originally written, the Fireys offered to help Sarah find the castle and thus would have had more screentime, so the trimming of their song may be a reflection of their reduced role.)

"The Game" is not sung in the film version of Damn Yankees, though its tune recurs instrumentally. It would have been tricky to Bowdlerise the lyrics to be in line with The Hays Code, though pacing was another likely reason the song was cut.

"Last Night When We Were Young" was cut from not one but two MGM musicals: Metropolitan with Laurence Tibbett, and In the Good Old Summertime with Judy Garland. At least a recording of Garland's version survives.

"Lovely, Lonely Man" in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is omitted in some TV airings and the stage adaptation since it stands out so much on its own compared with other songs. The Sherman Brothers were initially upset that the stage version omitted it, but they accepted the producers' decision.

"We Got Annie" from the 1982 film version, with Warbucks' staff fawning over the new arrival, did not make it into the reboot due to the story being built more around Stacks being a rich loner who shut people out.

"Sign", likely because both Stacks would not go to Hannigan's himself and because he'd likely think something was up if he arrived at the apartment without warning and she didn't have time to clean it up like for the inspector.

"Sandy (Dumb Dog)", as Annie never brings Sandy to the foster home and adopts her afterwards.

Daddy Warbucks's solo in the musical, "Something Was Missing", was recorded by Jamie Foxx, but was left out of the final film (it does, however, play as incidental music in a few scenes). It was also filmed and released as a bonus feature on the DVD.

Another song that gets only an instrumental cameo is "N.Y.C.", which appears as the underscore in the other mayoral candidate's campaign video.

The 1930 United Artists picture Reaching for the Moon had most of its Irving Berlin songs deleted before it was released, at a time when the early boom in movie musicals was fading. Only "When the Folks High Up Do the Mean Low-Down" was still sung in the final cut; the title song was retained only as an Instrumental Theme Tune. The cut Gospel Revival Number "If You Believe" was resurrected for the Jukebox MusicalThere's No Business Like Show Business; much later, it became the first-act finale of the 2007 Encores! revival of Face the Music.

"I Guess This Is Goodbye", "Maybe They're Magic", "Our Little World", "First Midnight", "Second Midnight", "Ever After", "So Happy", "Agony (Reprise)" and "No More". Interestingly enough, several cut songs appear in the scenes as background music where the songs were. Listen to the music as the Baker mourns his wife's passing and you'll hear "No More". "Ever After" is the march played as the first "act" ends at Cinderella's wedding, and it transitions into a snippet of "So Happy." Technically, "Cinderella at the Grave" is not cut, but only the mother's part remains (although the "shiver and quiver little tree" melody is heard as Cinderella's dress and slippers appear on her. Its short reprise (where the ghost and birds warn the prince about the slipper) is also cut; the Steward simply notices the blood when assisting Florinda, and Lucinda exposes herself by being completely unable to walk. The melody of "this is the proper bride for you" does return when the prince puts the slipper on Cinderella's foot.

Also, the film originally had two new songs, "Rainbows" for the Baker and his wife and "She'll Be Back" for the Witch. Both were cut out of the final film, the latter is available on the home release.

A few songs were also rewritten. "On the Steps of the Palace" is now primarily in the first person instead of the second, while "Your Fault" is noticeably slower, most likely because the actors couldn't keep up with the pace of the original.

A more likely explanation for the adjusted tempo of "Your Fault" (and other tongue-twister lyrics, like the "Witch's Rap") is that filmmakers thought the wider moviegoing audience would have more difficulty following such fast-paced songs than a theatre audience did.

"How Can Love Survive?" had Elsa and Max wonder if Elsa and Captain Von Trapp could have a traditionally happy marriage despite their wealth. In the film, the duet became an instrumental waltz that plays after Elsa coerces Maria into returning to Nonnberg.

"No Way to Stop It" had Elsa and Max argue with the Captain over whether to oppose the Nazis' takeover of Austria, or accept them as a seemingly unstoppable force. This clash resulted in the anti-Nazi Captain calling off his engagement with Elsa, while the film simply has Elsa accept that they don't have enough in common to build a marriage on.

"An Ordinary Couple" had Maria and Captain proclaim their love for each other, then decide to get married. The film had a new song, "Something Good", fill this purpose instead.

Interestingly, some productions of the original play (including NBC's live telecast) restore "How Can Love Survive?" and "No Way to Stop It", but not "An Ordinary Couple". Maria and the Captain still sing "Something Good" instead.

Kung Fury has an EP's worth of music by Mitch Murder that didn't make it into the film, but was released as a free Bandcamp download.

The Way We Were: An alternate title song was written for Barbra Streisand, but the filmmakers decided to go with the original instead. The alternate song was first released as a bonus track on the Streisand box set Just for the Record..., as "The Way We Weren't".

"Period Sex" from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was teased many times in season two but never aired in an actual episode, instead only being revealed in full on youtube. Word of God is that this is because it was rejected by the censors, which, given the kind of songs that did make it to air, is saying something.

Two songs on the second album are only available as demos - "Sex Toys", sung by Karen as part of her dominatrix persona selling sex toys to Rebecca and co., and "It's Not Difficult to Define Miss Douche", apparently the theme song for the Miss Douche competition Rebecca enters.

"Settle for Her", available in full on the album, would have been in the final episode of season 3, featuring Nathaniel singing about how he should stick with his girlfriend despite his feelings for Rebecca. It was presumably cut for time given how rushed the episode still ended up.

Music

The songs "When the Tigers Broke Free" and "What Shall We Do Now?" were both cut from the album of Pink Floyd's The Wall for lack of space. The former was released as a non-album single, whilst the intro to the latter was reworked into "Empty Spaces", and its lyrics were included in the sleeve notes (though not, unfortunately, in the CD rerelease) and was used in the live tour. Both songs were ultimately used in the film version.

And "Hey You" and "The Show Must Go On" were cut from the film version.

Roger Waters recorded, rewrote, and re-recorded The Wall several times, each with varying lyrics and track sequences. One track, "Sexual Revolution," disappeared entirely - and was held until his solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hiking.

Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast album was running too long to sound good on vinyl so the band had to decide between "Gangland" and "Total Eclipse". Though the other band members (especially Bruce) expressed preference for "Total Eclipse", Steve Harris decided the song was a bit too experimental for Maiden and so "Gangland" was used instead, with "Total Eclipse" being released as a B-Side to the "Run To The Hills" single, which came out a few weeks before the album. Total Eclipse was used on the original Japanese LP of the album but removed on subsequent pressings. Nowadays, Harris feels Total Eclipse should have been on the album instead of Gangland. The CD remaster of the album includes both songs in the original intended order.

Five Iron Frenzy recorded three songs for Electric Boogaloo that got cut simply because the album was running too long. "Kamikaze" and "Dog Food" were released as-is on the b-sides collection Cheeses (of Nazareth); "Farewell to Arms" was revised, rerecorded, and included on The End is Here. Looking back, some members of the band thought that "Kamikaze" was the best song they ever wrote, and wondered what the heck they were thinking when they cut it.

Jason Martin has said that "I Was 17" was his favorite song from the Americana recording sessions, but it couldn't be included because it was too stylistically different from the rest of the album. It was instead included on Easy Come, Easy Go.

In the production diary for Old, an instrumental song named "Jim" (featuring trumpet work by Richard Swift, oddly enough) was mentioned a few times, but nothing of the sort appears on the finished album. Jason has clarified that the song was indeed cut, and then the hard drive containing the song was damaged, so "Jim" is pretty much gone forever.

Sufjan Stevens' The Avalanche was basically an entire album's worth of songs that got cut from Sufjan's prior album Illinois.

The song "Rock Star" was supposed to be on the Hole album Live Through This, but was cut not long before the album's release because of the line "How'd you like to be Nirvana/So much fun to be Nirvana/A barrel of laughs to be Nirvana/Say you'd rather die, yeah like to try" (the album was released not long after Kurt Cobain's death). Funnily enough, the song was replaced with the song "Olympia", but the name on the album's cover wasn't changed.

Laserdance's rare track "Fall of the Wall" (referring to the Berlin Wall), judging by its sound, was apparently meant for the Discovery Trip album, but was relegated to a B-side on the Megamix Vol. 3 EP. Parts of it were also used for the intro and ending of Megamix Vol. 4.

P!nk's "Whataya Want From Me" was originally recorded for her Funhouse album, but when it didn't make the cut, she gave it to Adam Lambert. P!nk's version was later released on her Greatest Hits compilation.

Camper Van Beethoven's Key Lime Pie was originally going to have a "Closing Theme" to go with its "Opening Theme" - the Lemony Narrator liner notes even apologize to David Lowery for not including it because the Record Producer decided the album was too long. "Closing Theme" eventually showed up on the rarity and outtake compilation Camper Van Beethoven Is Dead, Long Live Camper Van Beethoven, although it turned out that it had already been released as a b-side under the title "Guitar Hero".

On their album Rumours, Fleetwood Mac originally left off the song "Silver Springs" due to a lack of space on the vinyl. It's since appeared on re-issues of Rumours and on one of Stevie Nicks' compilation albums.

XTC went back and forward on including "Dear God" on Skylarking: It was on initial pressings of the album, but quickly cut both for the album's length and the label's concerns that the subject matter might be too controversial, especially to American listeners. Ironically, when "Dear God" was released as a B-Side to "Grass", American DJs preferred to play the b-side and it became a hit. Subsequently, "Dear God" was put back on the album, but another song, "Mermaid Smiled", had to be cut to make room. They subsequently included "Mermaid Smiled" on the b-side\rarity collection Rag N' Bone Buffet, and a later reissue of Skylarking included both songs, with "Dear God" appearing as a bonus track.

The Bee Gees' classic LP Trafalgar was originally sequenced with two extra songs - "We Lost The Road" and "Country Woman," which made for two overly-long sides. The former was held for their next album ("To Whom It May Concern"), while the latter became a surprisingly good B-side.

The White Album, in all its infamously overlong glory, lost enough songs to more or less comprise another whole LP's worth of material — "Not Guilty", "Junk", "What's The New Mary Jane", "Circles", "Child Of Nature" (a forerunner of Lennon's "Jealous Guy"), "Mean Mr. Mustard", "Polythene Pam", "Sour Milk Sea" (which many fans agree would've made for a killer single), "Step Inside Love", and others.

John and Yoko's avant-garde "What's The New Mary Jane" was evidently a last-minute omission - in interviews leading up to the album's release, John still described it as having 31 tracks, the extra being a three-minute edit of "Mary Jane."

Beatle producer George Martin suggested that three songs be dropped from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band — "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Penny Lane" (which became a standalone single, and Martin regrets removing them from the album to this day) and "Only A Northern Song" (which he found boring and wanted George Harrison to replace - he put "Within You, Without You" instead, and the original song eventually emerged in Yellow Submarine.)

George Harrison's mammoth three-LP All Things Must Pass lost enough material to warrant at least another disc-and-a-half. The missing tracks (all found in the bootleg boxed set 'The Art of Dying') included "Mother Divine", "Cosmic Empire", a brassy remake of "Get Back", "Beautiful Girl", "Window Window", "I Don't Want To Do It", "Down To The River" (later retitled "Rocking Chair In Hawaii" for George's posthumous 'Brainwashed' CD), and five minutes of guitarist Pete Drake singing songs through a talkbox, possibly intended for inclusion on the 'Apple Jam' disc.

Early promotional material for Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons, the show's second soundtrack album, listed the "Bad Boys" parody "Bad Cops" from the episode "Homer's Triple Bypass".

The 2004 album Encore originally included a track titled "Christopher Reeve" — who died before the album's release. Eminem not only removed the track, but destroyed all copies of the song so that there was no chance of a leak.

The Dixie Chicks' Fly includes a brief track titled "Ain't No Thang But A Chickin' Wang", which consists of silence. Apparently, on promo discs, this spot is taken by an actual song - the otherwise unreleased "Wherever You Are." This track was a duet with an artist named Deryl Dodd, who wanted to re-record his contribution for the final album, but fell ill before doing so.

"Round and Round" (this Chuck Berry cover was replaced by "Starman" when RCA executives wanted a song that could be pushed as a single)

"Amsterdam" (one cover version replaces another — this Jacques Brel song was replaced by Ron Davies' "It Ain't Easy")

"Velvet Goldmine" (replaced by "Suffragette City")

"Holy Holy" (replaced by "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide")

"Dodo" was written for his aborted 1984 musical and appeared in his "1980 Floor Show" concert for The Midnight Special in 1973. But unlike other songs he wrote for that project, it didn't make the final track lineup of Diamond Dogs. It survives as a demo.

"Too Dizzy" did make it to Never Let Me Down but was cut from all reissues; Bowie historian Nicholas Pegg believes Bowie is embarrassed by its unintentionally creepy Stalker with a Crush lyrics.

"Bring Me the Disco King" was initially written and recorded for 1993's Black Tie White Noise, but left off; it eventually was rerecorded for 2003's Reality. This explains why the song is substantially jazzier than the album's other numbers.

The Foo Fighters have a few, mostly emerging as B-sides or bonus tracks in special editions. The weirdest case was "The Colour and the Shape", which is absent from the namesake album because Dave Grohl felt they didn't need another noisy track of that kind (but was eventually put in the 10th anniversary edition). Other songs include "Winnebago", "Podunk", "Butterflies" (which was played live but not issued officially), "Dear Lover", "Fraternity", "Walking a Line", "Normal", "The Sign", "Spill", "FFL", "If Ever", "Seda", "Bangin'" and "Better Off".

"You're Pitiful" was originally scheduled to be the lead single on Weird Al Yankovic'sStraight Outta Lynwood. Atlantic removed their permission at the last instant, so Al released it for free instead.

Handel's Messiah had many numbers abridged, rewritten, or transposed for different Voice Types, but a few were entirely replaced for the first few performances, though few alterations were made to Charles Jennens' text:

The arias "But who may abide," "Thou art gone up on high" and "Thou shalt break them" were replaced with short recitatives for the 1742 Dublin premiere (though the recitative setting of "Thou art gone up on high" does not survive). The first two of these three arias, originally composed for bass, were later rewritten for alto/castrato.

"How beautiful are the feet" was originally composed as an aria da capo for soprano, with "Their sound is gone out into all lands" set as the B section. For the 1742 Dublin premiere, this number was replaced with one for two altos and chorus using a somewhat different text (the chorus coming in on "Break forth into joy"). "Their sound is gone out" was then recomposed for the 1743 Covent Garden performance as an arioso for tenor. Handel later wrote an all-new choral setting of "Their sound is gone out," and reinstated the first part of the original soprano aria "How beautiful are the feet."

The rare first edition of Ayla's Nirwana album had the track "Celine", which was replaced by "Angelfalls" on later editions.

Journey's 1983 album Frontiers had two songs cut from its original release — "Only The Young", which eventually appeared as part of the soundtrack for the 1985 film Vision Quest, and "Ask The Lonely", which was used for the 1983 film Two Of A Kind. Both songs were restored on the album's 2006 CD re-release.

The 77's put out an entire album—Sticks and Stones (1990)—of songs that had been cut from their first three albums for one reason or another. (The CD release also had three demo versions which the band preferred over the finished version that did appear on their prior album.) Ironically, Sticks and Stones was the 77's biggest commercial and critical success up to that point, and includes their best known song, "Mt". Many fans still consider it their best album.

Tony Iommi's Iommi was an album where every track featured a guest vocalist from another group: He wrote two songs each with Billy Corgan and Billy Idol and three with Phil Anselmo, but the idea was to have a different singer/collaborator on every track, so the additional songs were cut. One of the cut Phil Anselmo songs, "Inversion Of The Saviors", eventually leaked online, but nothing else is known of the other mentioned songs. Also, the album was originally going to have a song called "Something Wicked This Way Comes" featuring Scooter Ward from the band Cold; For unknown reasons, the song was cut and most of the music was reused for "Just Say No To Love", a song featuring Peter Steele.

The Streets' concept album A Grand Don't Come For Free had the song "Soaked by the Ale" cut from the final track-list and released as a B-Side to "Fit but You Know It". Chronologically, the plot of the song fits between "Fit but You Know It" and "Such a Twat", and explains a reference to "that incident with the ice cream" in the latter song.

A promotional copy of what would become James Otto's first album includes a song called "Gone". It was dropped from the track listing at the last minute because Montgomery Gentry had recorded it for You Do Your Thing, so another song also titled "Gone" was added in its place, as was "Days of Our Lives", which would become the title track when the album was released in 2004.

Faith Hill's 2005 album Fireflies included "What Hurts the Most" (originally by Mark Wills), but she chose to cut it from the tracklist at the last minute. It ended up being released by Rascal Flatts later in the year... and went on to become that group's Signature Song.

Phish are famous for never releasing official studio recordings of some of their best known songs; Instead those songs only appear at their concerts and on their many, many live recordings. However, many of those songs were at one time recorded for one of their studio albums, but they did not make the final cut. For instance, they cut versions of "Tube", "Vultures", "NICU", "Meatstick", and "Bittersweet Motel" from their 1998 album The Story of the Ghost, even though the band had been playing "Tube" and "NICU" for years before that, and all five songs were often played in concert after the album's release.

Pinballs

Guns N' Roses' "Ain't Going Down" was cut from the Use Your Illusion compilation album; it ended up being an exclusive on the Guns N' Roses pinball, and was even advertised as a "world-wide debut".

Pro Wrestling

Unfortunately, this is a trend in wrestling. Wrestlers are supposed to use a song at some point, but due to one reason or another, they end up on the shelf. In recent years, WWE has been releasing these unreleased songs on their Uncaged albums, subverting this trope, but there still that never got used proper.

Several songs were left on the cutting room floor from the WWF Forceable Entry album, which likely would have found their way into the televised product:

Kane was going to be given this theme by Type O Negative, but instead was given "Slow Chemical" by Finger Eleven, which at least was a pretty good song in its own right. Type O's version was eventually published as a bonus track for their Life is Killing Me album.

Averted in the case of Seether's "Out Of My Way" — originally recorded to be Kurt Angle's theme on Forceable Entry, it was cut from the album, only to surface later as Zach Gowen's theme.

In 2009, Wrestling/Edge and Chris Jericho won the Unified Tag Team Championship as a team dubbed "Rated Y 2 J". The pair had a mashup of their respective themes made, but sadly, Edge tore his Achilles tendon not too long after, causing the song to never get released. Instead, Jericho and The Big Show became a team and gained a mashup of their songs by Maylene and the Sons of Disaster.

There are a lot of allegedsongs that WWE Superstars were supposed to use, but never did. One example is "Playing the Saint" by Digital Summer, said to be considered for CM Punk's theme in 2011 before the (in)famous "pipe bomb" promo. If true, it would've fit Punk's heel character at the time to a 'T'.

"When Love Is Gone" was cut from the theatrical release for reasons of pacing (although this removal results in a poor editing job, no explanation for sudden emotions and does not back the counterpoint song in the finale), but added back into the VHS release. The DVD retains the theatrical cut, but the second DVD release includes the extended version, although not in widescreen. Brian Henson eventually revealed the reason for this is that the Disney archives staff at the time misplaced the original film negatives and the VHS version is all they have. As the attempts to use that copy for the DVD and Bluray releases did not work due to the picture quality, it is likely the extended version won't be re-released until the studio finds the master copy.

The soundtrack has two songs that didn't make it at all. One song by Honeydew and Beaker, and one sung by Sam the Eagle, along with an additional verse to "Marley and Marley".

Similarly, Muppet Treasure Island ended up cutting one verse from the songs "Something Better" (the first verse) and "Cabin Fever", both of which can be found on the soundtrack.

Theatre

In the 1920s, the Gershwin song "The Man I Love" was cut from two different musicals in their pre-Broadway tryouts, and was ultimately written out of a third show which reached Broadway after a three-year production hiatus. This didn't stop the song from becoming a big hit.

The Jerome Kern-P. G. Wodehouse song "Bill" originated in the Princess Theatre musical Oh, Lady! Lady!!, but was dropped because it wasn't quite appropriate to Bill's character (though a snippet remained in the first act finale). Kern made several attempts to insert it into other Broadway-bound musicals (it was even transformed into a Money Song in a Brewster's Millions musical that closed out of town), and finally succeeded in placing it in Show Boat.

Many songs were cut from Show Boat during the tryouts of the original production, and revivals tend to cut several more due to the show's length, though sometimes a few of them are reinstated. Here is an incomplete list:

The vocal for "Mis'ry's Comin' Aroun'" was deleted (except for the tragic coda, which the original Julie, Helen Morgan, included on her recording of "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"). The haunting tune remained in the miscegenation scene and was reused in the Medley Overture. The song has been restored in a number of later productions.

"Till Good Luck Comes My Way" (Ravenal's establishing song) originally began with a recitative that was cut from the original production. Later revivals cut the number and the scene in which it appeared, though it remained in underscoring, until the 1994 revival brought the scene back with new staging.

"I Looked Down at Him" (sung by Magnolia in the Pantry Scene to lead into a reprise of "Make Believe") and parts of "The Creole Love Song" (an early precursor to "You Are Love") also remain as underscoring.

"I Might Fall Back on You" and the burthens (to use Jerome Kern's term) of "Queenie's Ballyhoo" (which is surprisingly plot-relevant) and "Dandies on Parade" became merely dance music in the 1946 revival. The refrain of "I Might Fall Back On You" was itself borrowed from "Be Happy Too," a song for Magnolia and Andy written for an earlier version of the World's Fair scene where Ravenal makes a losing bet rather than a winning one.

"Hey, Feller!" was added to the show in 1927 just so the blackface actress who played Queenie could have a big number to sing in the second act. It's probably the least used number that remained in the original production, though the 1951 film version has some dance music based on it. Interestingly, Oscar Hammerstein II had tried out the "baskin'/caressin'/askin'/yessin'" rhyme in two earlier Cut Songs: "Let's Have a Love Affair," sung by the Beta Couple in the Sigmund Romberg operetta The Desert Song but replaced by a reprise of "It" soon after the show's Broadway opening; and, before that, "Come On and Pet Me" (whose Vincent Youmans tune was more profitably recycled as "Sometimes I'm Happy") from the instantly forgotten 1923 musical comedy Mary Jane McKane.

"I Hope You're Happy" was composed but was considerably pared down until it only survives as a few throwaway lines at the beginning and end of "Defying Gravity".

The show has an entire catalogue of songs that were tried out and subsequently cut during its various stages of development. Several of these were performed as part of a one-off benefit concert, Wicked: The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken. These include:

Two versions of "Making Good" (early attempts at an "I Want" Song for Elphaba, eventually replaced by "The Wizard and I")

A song called "As If By Magic" (featuring Elphaba and Fiyero helping Dr. Dillamond with his research, before the whole Animals sub-plot was retooled)

"Bad Situation" and "Far Be It for Me" (two early duets establishing the relationship between Glinda and Elphaba, which were eventually supplanted by "What Is This Feeling?")

"The Emerald City Stomp" and "Which Way to the Party?" (two attempts at introducing the character of Fiyero, ultimately replaced by "Dancing Through Life").

"No Good Deed" originally had a Dark Reprise of the "Unlimited" motif ("Unlimited, the damage is unlimited...") that was dropped after the San Francisco try-out and replaced by the "Limited" lyrics at the beginning of "For Good".

"Come Down from the Tree" was cut from Once On This Island. Audra McDonald recorded it on one of her albums.

A bunch of songs that had been cut from earlier Stephen Sondheim musicals were fashioned into a new 2-person musical revue called Marry Me a Little. Interestingly, though "Marry Me a Little" was a Cut Song from the original production of Company, the Broadway revivals have reinserted it at the end of the first act. "Marry Me a Little" was in fact one of four attempts to write a final song for Company. The earliest, "Multitudes of Amys", was written when the 'plot' of the show was substantially different (Amy refuses to marry Paul at the end of Act I and ultimately ends up with Robert in Act II). "Happily Ever After" capped the show during Boston try-outs, but audiences response to the song was extremely negative and Hal Prince insisted that Sondheim write a more optimistic replacement. Said replacement became the canonical ending, "Being Alive". One other cut song, "The Wedding Is Off", is the slower, more hesitating predecessor to "Getting Married Today".

Of the many songs cut from Follies, three ended up being used as instrumentals. "All Things Bright and Beautiful" became the dreamy waltz music which plays during the prologue; a fragment of "That Old Piano Roll" can be heard immediately after (and at the curtain call); pieces of "Can That Boy Fox-Trot" are used as incidental music. Sondheim reused several other FolliesCut Songs in the soundtrack to the movie Stavisky. The 1998 Paper Mill cast recording of Follies, billed as complete, does not include all the Cut Songs, nor does it include any of the songs written for the 1987 London production except "Ah, But Underneath."

The writers of The Fantasticks have replaced the song "It Depends on What You Pay" with a song called "Abductions" because the former referred extensively to orchestrating a "rape", using the word in what was called a "literary" sense to mean a kidnapping or abduction. (The later instrumental piece "The Rape Ballet" was similarly renamed to "The Abduction Ballet", but was not actually cut.)

"From This Moment On" was cut from Out of This World before the show reached Broadway; Cole Porter was not pleased. However, by the time the song was reused in the film version of Kiss Me Kate, it had already become a hit.

Judge Turpin's "Johanna" (not a reprise of the earlier "Johanna") in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is sometimes cut from productions (including the original 1979 Broadway production (though it can be found on the cast recording), the 1984 taped peformance and the 2007 movie), due to its high Squick rating. It has been reinstated, however, in most modern productions (including the 2005 Broadway revival, the Barcelona production, the concert versions, the 2012 London revival, the 2017 Off-Broadway revival, and many more). Additionally, "Parlour Songs" is abridged in most productions (usually leaving out "Tower of Bray"), an additional Contest segment (The Toothpulling Contest) is almost always cut, and "The Beggar Woman's Lullaby", added for the original London production, is sometimes cut as well.

Gilbert and Sullivan had a lot of cut songs, most of which were cut for length after the first few performances. (Many surviving songs had the number of verses reduced for the same reason.) The music to about half of these cut songs is lost, but a good number survive intact and are occasionally performed:

Iolanthe, at the time of its simultaneous New York and London premieres, included two later-deleted songs in the second act: "De Belville was regarded as the Crichton of his age," Lord Mountararat's Patter Song about how the Renaissance Man De Belville was finally rewarded with a peerage thanks to a distant cousin's death, and "Fold your flapping wings," a serious, from-the-heart song for Strephon lamenting life in Parliament. Of the former song's music, only a second violin part survives, but "Fold your flapping wings" did have its music published in the vocal score of the show.

From Ruddigore, Robin's second-act patter song (not the trio) exists in two versions; neither is commonly used. A few D'Oyly Carte revivals in the 20th century also cut Rose's first-act duet with Richard, her half of their second-act number "Happily coupled are we," and the second-act finale "When a man has been a naughty baronet" (which was replaced with a simplified reprise of "Oh, happy the lily" from the first-act finale).

"Come mighty must", a rather extended series of grammar puns, is often cut from modern productions of Princess Ida, though the dialogue of the final scene makes a Call-Back to it.

"Happy are we in our loving frivolity" was the original opening to Act II of The Sorcerer. It was replaced with a much more complicated opening in the revival, in order to give a little more spectacle. It's occasionally added later in Act II. Sorcerer also has a rather bizarre cut: Lady Sangazure has a recitative in Act I that, unlike practically every other piece in Western music, fails to resolve to the tonic at the end, instead setting up an unused key change. This is because it was originally meant to transition into a cut song, and the recitative was neither revised or cut when the following song was.

Averted in The Mikado: Gilbert planned to cut the title character's song "A More Humane Mikado" before opening night, but ended up not doing so (allegedly by request of the chorus). Posterity seems to have sided with the chorus; it's one of the operetta's best known songs. The incident is dramatized to great effect in the film Topsy-Turvy.

The Yeomen of the Guard is particularly notable for the number of cut songs that still survive. For example, Colonel Fairfax's aria "Is Life a Boon" has alternate music. Wilfred's Establishing Song, "When jealous torments rack my soul," is a particularly unfortunate cut (made when Rutland Barrington left the cast): It's one of Sullivan's most unique works. Some productions that restore these cut "Rapture, rapture" instead. Also, Sergeant Meryll has "A laughing boy but yesterday," cut because Gilbert decided at the last minute that it was irrelevant.

"Though men of rank may useless seem," an entrance song for the Duke in Patience. (Oddly enough, while both Gilbert's lyrics and Sullivan's orchestration have been preserved, the voice part had to be reconstructed.)

The Grand Duke: After the opening night, Sullivan left for France and Gilbert took the opportunity to cut "Come, bumpers," "Take my advice when deep in debt" and "Well, you're a pretty kind of fellow," as well as sections of several other numbers, but Sullivan apparently disagreed and retained all of them in the vocal score. The show was a failure in its first run and was never fully staged again by D'Oyly Carte. There is a consensus that The Grand Duke is too long, but no consensus on what to cut.

"Momma's Talkin' Soft" from Gypsy, which originally was intertwined in a Counterpoint Duet with "Small World" and meant to foreshadow the "Momma's talkin' loud" section of "Rose's Turn", was cut because it was sung by the young June and Louise on a piece of the set that was above the action, and the child actress playing young Louise was afraid of heights. Despite still being cut however, this song is included in the 2008 Patti LuPone Revival Cast Recording, along with a few others:

"Smile, Girls", a second-act opener for Rose which was introduced and discarded during the Philadelphia tryout.

"Who Needs Him?" was to have been sung by Rose after Herbie's departure; it was replaced by a short reprise of "Small World."

"Three Wishes for Christmas", for the Minsky Christmas show.

Chess has gone through countless revisions, so the selection of songs between productions (and during the run of some more troubled productions, especially Broadway) can be inconsistent in general. Some notable examples include:

The surprisingly good Villain Song "Let's Work Together" was cut from the surprisingly bad Broadway version.

And then there's the rarely-used Info Dump "The Story of Chess". Most American stage versions put "Let's Work Together" back and throw that one out.

The song "When the Waves Roll Out to Sea" was written but never made it into the show until the Swedish production, where it's sung by Molokov with entirely new lyrics (aside from being in Swedish).

The Broadway production also had "East/West" which only made it into a couple performances before being cut.

The Broadway version had "The Arbiter's Song" rewritten for a new scene at the start of the second act, which then had to be cut for time.

The original London production's act two Opening Ballet "Golden Bangkok" got cut sometime during the run.

The Concept Album includes a Quarreling Song for Florence and Anatoly titled "Argument" (though Anatoly was only known as "the Russian" at this point) which was replaced with the less hostile "One More Opponent" when the show was staged in London. "Argument" itself is pretty much never used in productions, but Broadway's "How Many Women" and the Swedish equivalent of "Florence Quits" use the tune (and other parts of the show, like "Anatoly and Molokov," feature variations anyway.)

"Gabey's Comin'" was originally cut from On the Town, despite having significant musical motifs echoed in the "Lonely Town" sequence and in the big Dream Ballet (and a Title Drop in its lyrics). More recent productions have reinstated it. Other notable Cut Songs include "The Intermission's Great," an Irrelevant Act Opener in the extreme, and the blues song "Ain't Got No Tears Left," and Hildy's But Liquor Is Quicker song, "Say When".

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum has a bunch of Cut Songs, including "There's Something About a War" (replaced with "Bring Me My Bride"), "Echo Song" (replaced with "That'll Show Him") and Pseudolus and Hysterium's Friendship Song "I Do Like You". Speaking of Pseudolus and Hysterium, their reprise of "Lovely" was actually written first, and when Hero and Philia's first-act duet "Your Eyes Are Blue" was cut, it was simply copied, orchestration and all, into that spot. Cut but retaining a presence in the score were "Love Is in the Air" (one of two rejected opening numbers) and "The House of Marcus Lycus". The first half of the original opening number "Forget War" was rewritten slightly and turned into the opening number for The Frogs, retitled "Invocation And Instruction To the Audience." Also, many productions cut the trio "Pretty Little Picture", which is not easy to sing.

The original Troubled Production of Leonard Bernstein's play in 1956 was followed in subsequent decades by a controversial series of revisions which included a wholly rewritten libretto. The score consequently went through many, many changes, and here is an incomplete summary of the songs that were cut from the various productions:

The 1974 Broadway revival rewrote the show in one act, with many songs thrown out (and the orchestration heavily reduced) and lyrics to some others entirely rewritten by Stephen Sondheim. One of the Sondheim lyrics, "Sheep Song" (a replacement for "The Ballad of Eldorado", whose use in this production was vetoed by Lillian Hellman), used the music of "Fernando's Lullaby", which had been cut in the show's earliest stages of production; another Sondheim lyric, "This World", was a new version of "Candide's Lament", a song version of Cunegonde's Leitmotif which had been cut in most previous productions. Sondheim also wrote new lyrics for the verse part of "Ring Around a Rosy" so it could be incorporated into "Auto-Da-Fé", whose refrain uses the same tune. The "Auto-Da-Fé" chorus was featured in the 1956 production's Lisbon scene, but with entirely different lyrics.

The 1982 Opera House version expanded the 1974 version back to two acts, restoring to the score "Dear Boy" (cut from the syphilis-free 1956 production but included in an appendix to the original vocal score), "Alleluia", "Chorale/Battle Music", "The Paris Waltz" (as "The Governor's Waltz", but still an instrumental), "Money, Money, Money", "What's the Use?", "Quartet Finale" (now sung before "My Love", which it originally reprised), "The Ballad of Eldorado" (as "The Ballad of the New World") and "Quiet"; the first two had been cut in most earlier productions, and the last three had new lyrics written by Richard Wilbur. The Westphalian chorale had its original wedding-related lyric replaced with the first lines of the hymn "Ein feste Burg." The duet for the Arab Conjurer and Infant Casmira (two characters who only appeared in the withdrawn Lillian Hellman libretto), which was already being cannibalized for instrumentals in the 1974 version, also had its original coda (already cut in the 1956 production in favor of "Pray For Us") restored to the Lisbon sequence with new lyrics.

The 1988 Scottish Opera Production and the composer's Final Revised Version restored a few songs to their original lyrics, added all-new lyrics for "Westphalia" and stuffed even more songs into the score, including "The Kings' Barcarolle," "Nothing More Than This" and "Life is Neither", which had been cut from the original production and used only infrequently before 1974. ("Barcarolle" had been used in the 1974 version only as underscoring.) An untitled abridgment of "Ring Around a Rosy" and most of the "What a fair" lyrics from the 1956 version were both interpolated into the "Auto-Da-Fé" number. A few numbers were not restored: the "Sheep Song," most of the vocals to "Alleluia" (which remained on the composer's recording) and the aforementioned duet for the Arab Conjurer and Infant Casmira.

The "Lost in Boston" albums consist entirely of Cut Songs from various Broadway musicals. Among the ones recorded are a few of the dozens of Cut Songs written for 110 In The Shade.

It's commonly believed that "Always" was a Cut Song from The Cocoanuts, since Irving Berlin published it around the same time as the songs he wrote for the show. Actually, "Always" was never part of the show at any stage of its production, though the possibility of Groucho singing it was vaguely considered.

In the original London production, Cosette had an aria called "I Saw Him Once", and Gavroche's song "Little People" was much longer. Both songs were eventually cut, but can be heard on the London cast recording. Many other songs, such as "Fantine's Arrest" had additional lyrics and "Stars" was originally placed much earlier in the show. These extended versions can be found on the preview rcordings: [1]

"Ten Little Bullets" was originally Gavroche's death song, but the Dark Reprise of "Little People" supplanted it. It was reinstated in the 2006 Broadway revival.

The original French production from 1980 (which predated the first West End adaptation) had a few songs that were cut or heavily changed in the transition to adapting it to English. Fantine's first solo was originally "LAir de la misère" ("Air of Misery"), which was rewritten, moved, and re-assigned to Eponine as "On My Own". Eponine's solo was the much different "L'Un Vers L'Autre" ("One After the Other"). The song "Look Down" was originally "Donnez, donnez" ("Give, give") and had a much longer solo part for Gavroche. Madame Thenardier also had the solo "Mamzelle Crapaud" ("Miss Toad"), in which she oddly enough mentioned her second daughter Azelma, who was Adapted Out of subsequent productions and who otherwise played no relevenat part in this version. Gavroche's solo "La Faute à Voltaire" was cut down significantly to become "Little People".

The stage version originally had "Summer Night City" (itself the musical's working title) sung just after the prologue. It was cut after the London production's first previews, supposedly because the scene took things too fast by introducing nearly the entire cast all at once. After its removal, the characters were introduced gradually throughout the first act. This also resulted in switching the placement of "Money, Money, Money" and "Honey, Honey", as Sophie's friends were now introduced a scene before Donna's. The song survives instrumentally as scene change music after "The Winner Takes It All", as well as in the form of distorted lyrics heard during the entr'acte.

Another number cut shortly before the London previews began was "Just Like That", an ABBA song that was never released in its entirety. The number was going to be a duet between Sky and Sophie telling how they met, and was going to be sung before "Money, Money, Money".

"Fernando" was originally supposed to be a flamboyant dance number sung by Donna to entertain her guests, but it was cut as it did not move the story along. However, Donna hums a bit of the song to herself as she fixes up the taverna just before "Mamma Mia". Meryl Streep also does this in the film adaptation. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again would use "Fernando" as a full number, led by Donna's mother.

The Embassy Ball music in My Fair Lady is based on two Cut Songs: a Fanfare version of "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" (which was somewhat inappropriately reused in Gigi — "Pray I'll be Wellington, not Bonaparte" is an uncharacteristic sentiment for a French girl), and the waltz song "Lady Liza", whose replacement, "Oh, Come to the Ball", was also cut.

Miss Saigon originally had a song called "Too Much for One Heart" that was cut for timing purposes. Lea Salonga still performs it in her concerts because it was that good.

Lady in the Dark had several numbers that disappeared as the dream sequences underwent revision:

"It's Never Too Late to Mendelssohn" was written for Danny Kaye to sing in the second Dream Sequence. The song went unused (except for a few lines spoken under a completely unrelated melody), but Kaye recorded it.

"You Are Unforgettable" was written for a deleted part of the second Dream Sequence, after "The Princess of Pure Delight." The song was assigned to the character of Russell Paxton, appearing here as a movie director.

The third Dream Sequence originally had the song "No Matter Under What Star You're Born" as Liza's astrological excuse for not Making Up Her Mind, but it played poorly and was replaced by the show-stopper "The Saga of Jenny". The zodiac number was reused with substantial revisions in The Firebrand of Florence.

"Bats About You" was sung by a young couple at the graduation dance in the flashback sequence. (Unlike other cut numbers, it was orchestrated, though not by Weill.) Gertrude Lawrence at one point wanted it to be rewritten to replace the refrain of "One Life to Live" (which instead remained practically unchanged).

"My Magic Lamp" and "Bored" were cut from Kismet, but the former remained in the underscoring preceding the finale and the latter was kept as Lalume's entrance music. (Like many of the other songs, their melodies were derived from Borodin's Prince Igor.) "Bored" was sung in the movie version, and both songs reappeared in later stage productions. One edition of the show also cuts "He's in Love!"

Most Cirque du Soleil shows have original scores. If an act is dropped its corresponding song usually is too, though sometimes they are repurposed for understudy acts. Since soundtracks usually arrive within a year or two of a show's opening, this can make listening to some of them confusing. Notable examples of this trope include:

Mystère had "Rumeurs", "Caravena" and "Birimbau" — all for acts that were cut and replaced less than three years into the show's run. They all appeared on the original soundtrack album, but after the show's revamp it had a second soundtrack recorded which included the material written to replace the old songs, and the original fell out of print. (Curiously, the company's 2009 Greatest Hits Album25 used "Birimbau" to represent this show even though no trace of it remains in the score.) One of the replacements, simply titled "High Bar", was dropped in 2012 when the act in question was replaced with a trapeze act and the new song "Fiesta".

Banana Shpeel was written as a hybrid of Cirque, vaudeville, and musical, but all the originally-written songs (and their key singers) were cut when it proved to be too many elements and characters to handle — which was so late in the game that the preview of the show that ran on the 2009 season finale of America's Got Talent featured one of the tunes.

In Saltimbanco, "Pokinoi" was the song for the Vertical Rope act, which has long since been retired and is absent from the video. Later live performances used it for the second interlude, and it was also reworked as "One Love" for Delirium. "Kaze/Norweg" was completely dropped after the retirement of the Double Wire.

Amaluna's "Running on the Edge" was dropped along with the tightwire act after the first year of the NA tour, and "Fly Around" was replaced with a new song for the uneven bars act from 2014 onwards.

Volta had "Globetrotters" for the deleted trial bike/slackline scene, which unfortunately was not released on the soundtrack album. Ironically, later stagings reinstated this song for the baton twirling act, while the Hall of Equals scene (which previously showcased the unicycle duo and later the baton artist) and its accompanying song, "Battle of the Man", were retired in spring of 2018 following the on-stage death of aerialist Yann Arnaud.

Many passages were cut from Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly following its troubled La Scala premiere. Most of the cut passages were short and recitative-like, but they also included a drinking song for Yakuside.

Puccini's Il tabarro had Michele's aria "Scorri, fiume," whose music was mostly (but not entirely) the same as its replacement, "Nulla! Silenzio!" Puccini apparently demanded the rewrite because he wanted Michele to be more concerned with plotting revenge than contemplating suicide.

The stage version of Jekyll & Hyde went through several iterations of cuts in its years long trip from off-broadway to on. The original stage production was almost throughly rewritten, axing songs like "Love Has Come of Age" in favor of "Take Me As I Am", it was made into a new album to drum up interest and funds for the Broadway production, and between those last two were several other cuts; Lucy's "Bring on the Men" (replaced with the darker and more thematic "Good 'N' Evil") and "Girls of the Night", Jekyll's Dark Reprise of "Once Upon a Dream" and overall, too many to list. The show overall is probably better for the cuts but many of the cut songs were excelent on their own. With that last point in mind, while "Good 'N' Evil" is more thematically appropriate to the story, they eventually decided to reinstate "Bring on the Men"!

"My Best Love" from Flower Drum Song, cut because neither of the parents had the voices to sing it.

"When Messiah Comes" is perhaps the best-known Cut Song from Fiddler on the Roof. It was to have been sung by Tevye in the final scene, but its gallows humor tone didn't go over with preview audiences. One of the other removals, the rejected opening number "We Haven't Missed a Sabbath Yet", has lyrics for a tune that ultimately remained in the score only as set change music.

The 1988 revival of (more faithful to the original Cole Porter score than the 1962 revival, which recycled several cut songs from Porter's other musicals) actually reinstated two songs cut from the original production: "There's No Cure Like Travel" (countermelody to "Bon Voyage") and "Easy to Love" (which had been reused in the film Born to Dance).

The 1988 version also added "Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye", a cut song from Red Hot And Blue. On the other hand, "Where Are the Men?" was left out, as it had no purpose other than to give the Chorus Girls a turn.

In one early draft, "What a Joy to Be Young" was to be given several reprises. It was dropped during tryouts, despite one recording implying that it made it into New York.

"Buddie Beware" was cut during the original run in favor of a reprise of "I Get a Kick Out of You," apparently so latecomers would still get to hear Ethel Merman singing the first song in the score. (Merman didn't record it until 1947.)

"Thousands of Flowers" was arguably the best song Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt wrote for I Do! I Do! It didn't survive the pre-Broadway tryout.

"Silly People" was a song cut from this Stephen Sondheim musical during Boston try-outs. It was to have been by sung by Frid, a character who doesn't do much for the show (and otherwise doesn't sing) except serve as a lover for Petra. (The original Frid, George Lee Andrews, can be heard performing "Silly People" with Tunick's orchestral accompaniment in the contemporaneous concert recording Sondheim: A Musical Tribute.) Trevor Nunn reinstated the song for his recent London production and it quickly became clear why it had been cut. The music is sub-par for Sondheim, while the lyric is essentially a less elegant rehash of the ideas explored in "The Miller's Son", which is sung not a few minutes later by Petra.

Other cut songs include "Two Fairy Tales", a duet for Anne and Henrik in Common Time (otherwise avoided in this show); "Bang!", a sex-as-war song for Carl-Magnus and Désirée set to the same polonaise rhythm as "In Praise of Women"; and "My Husband the Pig", an extended solo for Charlotte from which a few lines were salvaged and developed into "Every Day a Little Death". Both "Two Fairy Tales" and "Bang!" were incorporated into the above-mentioned Marry Me a Little.

A short number titled "Bright Canary Yellow" or "Loneliness Of Evening", which appeared in Cinderella (1965).

"My Girl Back Home", used in the 1958 film version.

"Suddenly Lucky", a song for Cable (replaced with "Younger Than Springtime") whose refrain reappeared in The King and I with new lyrics as "Getting to Know You".

"Now Is the Time", the music of which was retained for several scene changes.

Cabaret features a number of cut songs, most notably "I Don't Care Much", which is used in later productions, sung by the Emcee. Other cut songs include "Roommates", "Good Time Charlie" and "It'll All Blow Over". Also, while they are present on the Original Cast Production, "Meeskite", "Telephone Song" and "Sitting Pretty" are usually cut to make room for "Mein Herr", "Maybe This Time" and "Money, Money", which originated in the film soundtrack.

Shortly after the Broadway opening of Camelot, "Then You May Take Me to the Fair" and "Fie on Goodness" were cut, but it was too late to take the songs off the original cast album (and bits of the former tune were still used for changes leading up to the jousting scene). They have often been reinstated.

When Annie Get Your Gun was revived in 1966, the songs "I'll Share It All for You" and "Who Do You Love, I Hope?" were dropped, along with the charming but inconsequential Beta Couple who sang them.

Larry Grossman and Hal Hackaday wrote a title song for Woody Allen's non-musical play Play It Again, Sam. This was recorded by Tony Bennett but ultimately unused in the play.

Six songs were cut from Kiss Me, Kate: "It Was Great Fun the First Time", for the principal couple, was to have been the second number when the show opened with "Wunderbar"; "We Shall Never Be Younger" and "A Woman's Career" were replaced with "So in Love" and its second-act reprise; "What Does Your Servant Dream About?" was a comic interlude for the servants; two others, "I'm Afraid, Sweetheart, I Love You" and "If Ever Married I'm", were never dramatically required.

Mark Charlap and Carolyn Leigh wrote some splendid songs for Peter Pan like "I've Gotta Crow" and "I'm Flying", but other numbers were apparently unsuitable and replaced with new ones by Jule Styne and Comden and Green. Perhaps the most poignant of the cut Charlap/Leigh songs was "When I Went Home", reflecting on Peter's Parental Abandonment, which was apparently too dark and replaced with the Styne/Comden/Green "Distant Melody".

Several modern productions cut the song "Ugg-a-Wugg" as some have deemed it offensive to Native Americans.

Several duets for Abner and Daisy Mae were cut; of these, "I Wish It Could Be Otherwise" was used in the movie version, and "It's a Nuisance Having You Around" was recorded by Rosemary Clooney.

Mammy Yokum was left without a number of her own when "The Way to a Man's Heart (Is Through His Stomach)" was cut.

"There's Room Enough for Us", a List Song with far more lyrics than could ever be used, was dropped except for a brief reprise used as a Set Switch Song.

The Beautiful Elite's number "In Society" had its small-talk vocal section dropped, though the tune was retained to accompany a dance sequence where the Dogpatchers infiltrate their ball.

Two songs were dropped from the second act of Call Me Madam: "Mr. Monotony" (which had already been cut from the film Easter Parade and the preceding Irving Berlin musical, Miss Liberty), and the political number "Free." Hopelessly irrelevant in Call Me Madam, "Mr. Monotony" was replaced with the livelier "Something to Dance About"; the number would be disinterred thirty-nine years later for Jerome Robbins' Broadway. As for "Free" (whose deletion made room for the newly written "You're Just in Love"), it was recycled with different lyrics in White Christmas as "Snow".

"I Got a Hobby" and "Bad" were deleted, because they were replaced by "Dentist!" and "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" respectively, which are both better songs.

"The Worse He Treats Me" was deleted because it mischaracterized Audrey (depicting her as an intentional masochist, rather than someone stuck in an abusive relationship).

"A Little Dental Music" was cut because it's unnecessary for the plot and supposedly hurt the timing, although some disagree.

"We'll Have Tomorrow" was stated to be cut for timing, but very few people believe this, considering that it would have been one of the more emotionally significant songs in the show. It's likely that it was cut out because it was too depressing. The song has never been reinstated, leaving only an Orphaned Reference to it in the finale.

A little-known cut song called "The Meek Shall Inherit (Reprise)" would have been a reprise of "The Meek Shall Inherit" for Patrick Martin, and was cut for unknown reasons as none of the creators have ever mentioned it.

The Networks U.S. touring production of Beauty and the Beast launched in 2010 dropped two of the stage-version-only songs, "No Matter What" and "Maison Des Lune", plus the choreographed battle between the Enchanted Objects and the mob. The consensus is that these were dropped for pacing purposes.

Many songs from the original version—"Engine of Love", "Call Me Rusty", "He Whistled at Me", "Belle the Sleeping Car", "Wide Smile, High Style", "No Comeback" and others—were cut in the 1990s to modernize the show and to add a much greater focus on the character Pearl at the expense of the rest of the cast. Eventually, "He Whistled at Me" was rewritten as "He'll Whistle at Me", with different arrangement and lyrics and a much earlier appearance in the show.

"A Lotta Locomotion" was changed almost completely for the 2003-07 tours, going from a cute, cheeky, Double Entendre-laden "I Am" Song to an overtly sexual Chorus Girls-style number with an arrangement more typical of The Pussycat Dolls. The tour also removed "There's Me" and "Coaches' Rolling Stock" for financial purposes.

Even before the '90s revamp, "Engine of Love", the first song ever written for the show, was replaced with "Call Me Rusty" when Starlight Express made its debut, but the Japan/Australia tour and early Bochum productions included the former instead. In 1992, "Call Me Rusty" was cut, leaving Rusty without a genuine establishing song—"Crazy", its replacement, was one of his many attempts to impress Pearl.

The 1980s Broadway production deleted "He Whistled at Me" in favor of "Make Up My Heart", making Pearl's first solo an angst-ridden pop ballad rather than a bouncy, erotic disco number.

"No Comeback" was cut in the 1980s to shorten the show, but the melody remained as a Leitmotif for Electra and his components.

Even the love song close to the end of the show has gone through some metamorphoses: originally it was two songs, "Only He" and "Only You", and they were both technically demanding. From Broadway until around 1992, the two songs were combined into one "Only You". Of course, when the show was being revised in the West End in 1992, Lloyd Webber wrote yet ANOTHER song for this moment, and so "Only You" was replaced entirely with "Next Time You Fall in Love", with lyrics written by one of his longtime collaborators, Don Black. It wasn't until 2003 when they decided to bring "Only He" back. But then in 2012, the team pulled a total 180 and asked Andrew's SON to write a song for this moment, and the result was "I Do", which has now also recently been added to the production in Bochum.

The original Dream Ballet from Tanz Der Vampire, called "Die Roten Stiefel" on the official recording, was cut in all later productions. It was replaced by "Stärker als wir sind / Das Gebet", except in the Japanese version, which is the only production so far to restore it.

"Marking Time" from Pippin was judged to be not indignant enough for its spot and replaced by "Extraordinary," but its tune remained in the show as the underscoring for a romantic moment with Catherine. Some productions also drop one or more of the minor numbers "Welcome Home", "There He Was" and "Prayer for a Duck". The 2013 revival also pretends that "I Guess I'll Miss the Man" was supposed to be cut, adding to the show's many No Fourth Wall jokes.

The score for Vanities: A New Musical was revamped no less than three times.

"Nothing Like a Friend", "All the Brendas in the World", and "Open Up Your Mind" disappeared after the initial Theatre Works production in Palo Alto, replaced by "Cute Boys with Short Haircuts" and "Let Life Happen", and "In the Same Place" was rearranged into "The Same Old Music".

The finale song changed from "Looking Good" to "Letting Go" in the Pasadena Playhouse version, then back to "Looking Good" in New York's off-Broadway Second Stage Theater version, then to "Letting Go" once again in Seattle's 5th Avenue/A Contemporary Theatre co-production. "Hey There, Beautiful", "Who Am I Today", "I Don't Wanna Hear About It" and "Feelin' Sunny (We're Gonna Be Okay)" were also dropped from the Off-Broadway show, replaced by "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" (no relation to the Aerosmith song), "Setting Your Sights", and its reprises, respectively. "Let Life Happen" was repositioned to take the place of "Okay", and "I Can't Imagine"'s reprise, "Counterpoint", was turned into a Dark Reprise and retitled "The Argument".

In turn, the 5th Avenue/ACT version replaced "Sights" with "Mystery". Some remnants of cut songs appear in the others, e.g. a melody used in "Feelin' Sunny" also appears in "I Can't Imagine", the melody of "Nothing Like a Friend" is used in the intro of "Fly Into the Future", the off-Broadway version of "Looking Good" still drops the title of "Hey There Beautiful" near the end, and parts of that song's lyrics made their way into "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing".

Martin Guerre has so, so, many, due to the many rewrites. Songs cut between the original version and rewritten version include, "Sleeping on Our Own", "Here Comes the Morning", "Welcome Home", "When Will Someone Hear", "Land of the Fathers" and the beautiful 'Prologue' Songs whose melody remain but with changed lyrics include "I Will Make You Proud", "Me", "Martin Guerre" and "Tell Me to Go".

The Unsinkable Molly Brown: "Colorado My Home", originally the last song of the score, was cut from the show, but nevertheless remained in the Medley Overture. It was later reinstated for Johnny alone in his first scene.

"There's Always a Woman", a Fay/Cora duet for a deleted scene in the third act in which the former character impersonates the latter.

"There Won't Be Trumpets" was in fact cut during the original Broadway run (which lasted only a week) because the monologue right before got already enough applause. The song was reinstated soon after.

A few other cut and replaced numbers can be heard on Stephen Sondheim's demo recordings: "The Lame, the Halt and the Blind" (replaced by "Miracle Song", but still used in the show as incidental music), "A Hero Will Come" (replaced by "There Won't Be Trumpets"), and an early version of "With So Little to Be Sure Of".

Most of Marie's singing opportunities were cut. Orchestrator Don Walker rued in particular the deletion of "Eyes of a Stranger," which preceded "Don't Cry". "Is It Fair?" was part of the second act sequence that starts with "Young People". An abortive third act reprise of "Nobody's Ever Gonna Love You" remained, but the song originally capped a long Marie/Tony sequence in the first act, of which "A Long Time Ago" was a remnant.

"Wanting to Be Wanted", replaced by "Somebody, Somewhere". The orchestral cry of anguish that punctuates "Please Let Me Tell You" is based on its tune.

The original producers The Golden Apple eliminated the original final number, "We've Just Begun," in favor of a reprise of "It's The Going Home Together." (An abridged version of this reprise can be heard on the heavily abridged original cast recording.) The authors resented this Executive Meddling and reinstated "We've Just Begun" in the licensed edition of the show, though the 2017 City Center Encores! production was able to use the reprise of "It's The Going Home Together" as a Curtain Call.

Porgy and Bess: A lot of things had to be cut out before the show's 1935 Broadway opening, unfortunately including "The Buzzard Song," which has been in most productions since (although the 1940s revival moved it to the final scene). Less surprising cuts made were the mostly-instrumental "Jazzbo Brown Blues," which most productions cut to avoid delaying "Summertime" for a long piano solo at the beginning of the show (it was the very first number to be cut), and "I Hates Yo' Struttin' Style," spoken rather than sung by Maria to Sportin' Life.

Many songs were cut from The Addams Family between the Chicago try-out and Broadway, including "Clandango" (replaced by "When You're An Addams"), "Passionate and True" (replaced by "Where Did We Go Wrong"), "As We're Slowly Dying" (a very brief duet between Wednesday and Lucas), and "At Seven/Teach Him How To Tango" (replaced in part by "Morticia"). "Let's Not Talk About Anything Else But Love," originally a dance number featuring Fester, the ancestors, Wednesday, and Lucas, was moved to the second act and changed into a shorter song performed by Gomez, Fester, Grandma, and Mal. The tour version complicated things by cutting "Morticia," "In The Arms," and "Where Did We Go Wrong" entirely, although the tune of the latter can be heard in part of Gomez's new song, "Trapped"- and the soundtrack is that of the Broadway version.

Damn near the entire original score of Grease was replaced in the move from Chicago to Broadway, with only a couple songs ("We Go Together" being one) remaining. The title number "Grease" in Act II (unrelated to the song made for the film) was cut, "Foster Beach" was replaced with "Summer Nights", an Act II song called "Rock Progression" was rewritten to be "Those Magic Changes", Sandy had a solo entitled "Kiss It" (replaced by "All Choked Up" ), and there was a song called "Boogie Man Boogie" instead of "Born To Hand Jive". The reprise of "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee", "Rock N' Roll Party Queen" and "Alone at the Drive-In Movie" were added for Broadway, though the singer of the last one changed from Kenickie to Danny over the course of production.

Miss Lynch and Patty also had solo songs, respectively entitled "In My Day" and "Yeuuugh!" (sometimes listed as "Yuck!" or "Yeee-eeuuch!"). Patty's song almost made it to Broadway, but was cut for time.

"Rydell Fight Song" was substituted in as a short number for Sandy and Patty, while it was made a solo for Patty in the 2011 revival.

The 2011 Chicago revival (titled "The Original Grease") resurrected a number of these songs, as well as a few that were cut from the original production, such as "Comin' At Ya" and the a capella "Tattoo Song". It also included a handful of more familiar tunes, such as including both "Hand Jive" and "Boogie Man Boogie", with the former being used to end off the dance sequence. The "Greased Lightnin' Reprise" from the '94 Broadway version wound up included as well, as another solo for Rizzo. "Kiss It" and "All Choked Up" are also paired together.

Warren Casey had written a solo song for Danny, but had never titled it and it was scrapped. It was added into the 2011 production with the title "How Big I'm Gonna Be".

There were three other songs that existed in early script drafts for the Kingston Mines version, though these ones have not been reinstated anywhere. It's unknown which characters were to sing them, but the titles are given as: "Inquest of Love", "All Clear", and "Think Of All The Starving Orphans". "All Clear" was intended to be in The Original Grease, but was cut so the show would not run too long.

The Abridged for ChildrenSchool Version usually omits There Are Worse Things I Could Do and Hopelessly Devoted .

Most recent tours of Cats eliminate the song "Of The Aweful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles", perhaps because of its strangely racist lyrics. Strangely, some programs still include the name of the Great Rumpus Cat, even though that character only appears in the cut song. In a similar vein, the film version does not include "Growltiger's Last Stand," since the same actor traditionally plays Gus and Growltiger, and Sir John Mills was too frail to play Growltiger. (Sometimes "Growltiger's Last Stand" is cut instead of "Aweful Battle" because the former requires a drastic change of scenery and costumes.)

Love Never Dies had a soundtrack recorded before it officially opened, and thus all the songs that were cut/altered in its massive retool were preserved.

Originally, the show had a prologue set a few years after the main action and sung between Madame Giry and Fleck (one of the freaks in the Phantom's employ) in the burnt-out remains of Phantasma, which led into "The Coney Island Waltz". Fleck also had a brief song afterward, "That's the Place You Ruined, You Fool!" In the Australian production, the prologue lyrics were incorporated into "The Coney Island Waltz" sequence and given to the Phantasma performers.

"Heaven by the Sea" was a Crowd Song for the Coney Island visitors that opened the main action and was reprised in Act Two; the retooled opening sequence made this redundant, and the melody was worked into a revised version of "Only for You" instead.

"Giry Confronts the Phantom", largely an As You Know monologue for Madame Giry explaining what happened between Phantom and this show, was reworked into "Ten Long Years" for her and Meg, in which they reflect on those events upon hearing of Christine's impending arrival in America.

"Street Light Is My Moonlight," a hard-swinging comic duet for the jitterbugging couple of Mae and Dick. It proved to be a bit too tough and urbane, and "Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed" was written to replace it.

"Great Big Sky," a philosophical number that would have provided the janitor with a big act-ending solo, in much the same style as the already-written title song of the yet-unproduced Lost in the Stars. The problem with this worthy song was that it would have stood in the shadow of the preceding "Lilac Bush" duet, so a short reprise of "A Marble and a Star" was used instead.

"Italy in Technicolor," a duet for Lippo and Mrs. Maurrant which Kurt Weill composed as a rhumba for some reason. It was cut when the second act needed to be shortened.

The Desert Song had two published songs that were dropped from the score. One was the Beta Couple's "Let's Have A Love Affair," mentioned above. The other, "Love's Dear Yearning (Dreaming in Paradise)," was only published under the show's tryout title Lady Fair, since it was replaced (except for the verse, which ended with "make you fly with me") by what became the title song.

The off-Broadway production had "There Once Was a Pirate" as the second act opener, which was briefly replaced by a different song, "Once Upon a Pirate Night," before being reinstated, and then replaced again by "The Guilty Ones" when the show moved to Broadway. A reprise of "There Once Was a Pirate" sung by the girls was, naturally, cut with it, and Broadway also lost reprises of "Mama Who Bore Me" and "Touch Me" sung by Anna.

Songs that were present in workshops of Spring Awakening but cut by the time the show appeared off-Broadway include "All Numb" (replaced by "All That's Known"), "A Comet On Its Way" (replaced by "The Bitch of Living"), "The Clouds Will Drift Away" (replaced by "Those You've Known"), and "Great Sex" (not replaced, rather the scene it accompanied was paired with an existing song instead).

The Madison Square Garden stage production and cast album of A Christmas Carol: The Musical originally included the song "The Years are Passing By" sung by the gravedigger, but it was removed from later stagings and the 2004 film version, replaced with the "Christmas Day is Near" Carol that is incorporated into "Jolly Good Time", which replaced "Jolly, Rich and Fat." "The Lights of Long Ago Part 2", originally heard during the "Money Montage" was also deleted, although the instrumental backing was retained. The montage's lyrics were also changed slightly from the early recording.

"The Blob," part of the 1962 party scene, was reduced to background music in the original production. Revivals brought Gussie's solo back with a continuation linking it to the newly written number "Growing Up."

"Honey," a love duet for Frank and Beth, was permanently replaced by the anti-Dark Reprise of "Not A Day Goes By," though it was still published in the vocal selections for some reason.

"The Hills of Tomorrow," whose melody begins with a version of the motif used in "Who Wants To Live In New York?" and "Good Thing Going," was sung in the original production as an A Cappella chorale in the high school graduation scenes book-ended the show. The revised version of the show deleted these framing scenes, thus eliminating any reason for the song.

"Rich and Happy," The Beautiful Elite's party number in the original production, was reworked as "That Frank" when the show was revised with an adult rather than adolescent cast in mind. Most of the lyrics were rewritten to be less cynical (except, of course, for Mary's lines), making Frank's new movie with Meg an unequivocal hit rather than critically savaged. The music remained mostly the same, except for parts of the refrain that would be less obvious if they hadn't also featured in the second half of the Medley Overture as originally performed.

Two more possibly unrecorded cut songs have their lyrics printed in Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981): "Darling!", a somewhat rambling solo for Gussie in the 1978 nightclub scene (based on the 1927 scene from the original play, but merged into the interview scene in the musical as revised), and "Thank You For Coming," the sign-off song for the nightclub revue Frankly Frank, which was replaced with "Bobbie and Jackie and Jack."

Assassins was once planned to have opened with "Flag Song," sung by bystanders watching an imaginary parade of presidents. The tune, echoes of which can be heard in "Another National Anthem," was salvaged by Sondheim for "It's in Your Hands Now" in Road Show.

Flashdance: The Musical's score underwent major changes between the UK tour/West End and US tour/Broadway productions. More than half of the songs were replaced, and the order of the songs was also changed. The only songs used from the film are "Maniac", "Manhunt", "I Love Rock & Roll", "Gloria", and "What a Feeling", the rest were axed.

In Knickerbocker Holiday, Tenpin's "Bachelor's Song (There's Something About A Bachelor)" was cut after being orchestrated by the composer. It can be heard on the concert recording by the Collegiate Chorale. Another cut song, "How Far Will You Go With Me?", was apparently intended for the part of the second act where Tina tries to save Brom's life by pretending to be pregnant by him.

At least four songs were cut from A Chorus Line: "Joanne" about Mike's crush on a neighborhood girl, "Confidence" as sung by Richie and Connie over the pressures of being a non-white auditioner, "Shoes" from a section of The Montage, and "Inner Feelings" from Cassie's point of view about Zach. The 40th anniversary re-release of the OBC included demos for "Joanne", "Shoes", and "It's All In Here", the track that would turn into "I Hope I Get It".

The "Jet Song" has a short bridge ("Oh, when the Jets fall in at the cornball dance") that is almost invariably cut. Although this is not a separate number in itself, the "Blues" that begins the Dance at the Gym reprises it as dance music. The bridge was a remnant of "Up To the Moon," an earlier attempt at an opening number for the Jets (who, being 1950s teenagers, were obsessed with speculative space travel) whose music was recycled into both the Prologue and "Jet Song," the latter acquiring most of its music and its lyrical finish from another rejected Jets number, "My Greatest Day." "Up To the Moon" also included lyrics ("Carazy, Daddy-O...") for the 2/4 version of the show's most prominent Leitmotif.

"Like Everybody Else" was a trio in the middle of the first act for Anybodys, Baby John and A-rab complaining about not being taken seriously because they're respectively just a girl, Just a Kid and just too short. It was removed because Arthur Laurents felt that it set a too frivolous tone for the show ("Gee, Officer Krupke" hadn't been written yet).

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, by the time the vocal score was printed, had been revised considerably, with three songs from the eighteenth-century flashback sequences dropped: "Tosy And Cosh" (replaced with "He Isn't You"), "Ring Out The Bells" and "Don't Tamper With My Sister." Snatches of the first two cut songs remained in underscoring.

Carousel had no songs cut for the original production (though many of the longer numbers had bits and pieces taken out). However, since the 1990s revival starring Michael Hayden as Billy Bigelow, it has become common to cut "The Highest Judge Of All," a vocally taxing number with an uninteresting melody apparently left in to allow time to change the scenery behind a drop curtain as Billy is taken up to the Afterlife Antechamber.

"Simply Second Nature" was replaced with "Pure Imagination", a Willy Wonka song that had served as the Climactic Music in London but was moved back to the Chocolate Room scene in New York. (The Climactic Music became the original song "The View from Here" instead.)

"A Little Me" and the closing reprise of "It Must Be Believed to Be Seen" were both cut. They were initially replaced by a reprise of "Strike That! Reverse It!" in New York City, but that became this trope after the first preview performances.

Another new song that didn't last the Broadway preview period was "Tales of Wonka", which was replaced with "Charlie, You and I".

This show also has an unusual case of a Cut Song being reinstated in the rehearsal stage — "It Must Be Believed to Be Seen" was the first song Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman wrote to serve as Willy Wonka's introductory number and the Act One finale, but was cut in favor of a "bigger" song (title unknown). Once the show reached the rehearsal stage, actor Douglas Hodge regarded the new song as too bombastic and scary, so Shaiman and Wittman — who had their own doubts about it by then — played "It Must Be Believed to Be Seen" for him. With further tweaking it was back in the show.

Goldilocks has eight deleted numbers (most of which reached the orchestration stage) published in The Leroy Anderson Songbook, including the Money Song "If I Can't Take It With Me," "Little Girls Should Be Seen (And Not Wed)," an anti-marriage song more lilting and less frantic than "I Can't Be In Love," and "Tagalong Kid," a Counterpoint Duet for Lois and George. "My Last Spring" dates to the early stages of the show's production when Mary Martin was the intended star.

Allegro had "Two Short Years," a Greek Chorus number sung at the opening of the second act. A small portion was retained as incidental music.

In The Cat and the Fiddle, the non-classical tune that Alex and Angie dance to near the end of the first act, which is briefly heard again at the start of the Dream Ballet, belongs to a song ironically titled "Don't Ask Me Not To Sing." It was sung in the movie version of The Cat and the Fiddle and the Broadway version of Roberta.

Face the Music had "Two Cheers Instead of Three," "The Police of New York" and "What Chance Have I With Love?" in an early draft of the first act; all of them were cut before the original production opened on Broadway. The 2007 Encores! revival restored "Two Cheers Instead of Three" to its spot after "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" and followed it with "The Police of New York," though it was the first act finale in the draft. "What Chance Have I With Love?", apparently not finished at the time, later appeared in the 1940 musical Louisiana Purchase; a similarly rueful List Song possibly intended for the show, "How Can I Change My Luck?", was incorporated into the second act of the Encores! version.

John Coolidge Adams' 1987 minimalist opera Nixon In China has a rather notable one in "The Chairman Dances"; originally written as a scene at some point in Act III in which Madame Mao gatecrashes a presidential banquet and starts dancing seductively, only for Chairman Mao to leap out of a portrait and start dancing a foxtrot with her backwards through time (it's that kind of opera, and incidentally that's why the piece is subtitled "Foxtrot for Orchestra"). Adams couldn't fit the piece into the final opera (Adams himself referred to it as "an out-take"), but the piece was published and remains fairly popular for orchestras playing minimalist/post-minimalist concerts as it's pretty catchy for the style.

The "Entr'acte" leading into "When I Grow Up" was dropped after the show made the leap across the pond to Broadway, being replaced by the Act 1 "Overture" there, and eventually disappeared from the West End production as well.

"Perhaps a Child", sung by Mafiya boss Sergei after realizing Matilda's extraordinary intelligence, was cut after the previews at Stratford due to time constraints, except for the instrumental background music, and the reprise of "This Little Girl" at the end. The song was later released as a bonus track on the iTunes edition of the Broadway cast album.

The original Broadway version and CD have a song called "A Day For The Cat in the Hat," in which the Cat tries to entertain Jojo while his parents are attending a conference with his teacher. The song was cut for the touring production, which also featured a rewritten script that made the Cat JoJo's guide throughout the whole play.

In the pre-Broadway tryout, there was a song about The Lorax late in the second act.

One Touch of Venus has many deleted numbers, many of them belonging to deleted subplots. One of the last numbers to be cut was "Who Am I?", which was to have been sung by Savory in the hung-over state he appears in at the start of the second act.

Closer Than Ever gradually developed out of a file of urban-themed songs Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire added to for yeras. The first of these was "The Bear, the Tiger, the Hamster and the Mole," which was cut from the workshop of Baby when the authors realized that nothing else could be done with any character who would sing that. Other songs written for Baby that found a home in Closer Than Ever (most with revised lyrics) were "Like a Baby" (replaced in the second act of Baby by "With You"), "I Wouldn't Go Back" (part of the original ending which was revised during previews), "Patterns" (included on the original cast album of Baby and the published script but not performed during the Broadway run) and "Fathers of Fathers."

Hamilton has a few - a pretty natural result from trying to summarize 50 years of a very important time in history in just a two-act show:

"Dear Theodosia (Reprise)", in which Aaron Burr must tell his daughter that her mother, his wife, has passed away.

"Congratulations", a song for Angelica right before "Burn", calling Alexander out for the dumb choices he's made. One section ("I know my sister like I know my own mind...") was inserted into "The Reynolds Pamphlet" when it was removed.

"One Last Ride", a song in which Washington puts down the Whiskey Rebellion before retiring from office. It was reworked into "One Last Time" which had Washington convincing Hamilton help him write his farewell address.

"Diplomacy Happens at Night" was to be a song for Benjamin Franklin, who ended up being cut entirely from the show. His role was cut early on in the show's devlopment, but Miranda finished writing the song anyway, joking that they'll add it back in after his death. How does he write like he's running out of time?

The Dark Reprise of "The Story of Tonight" was left off the cast album, mostly because the scene is almost entirely spoken instead of sung or rapped, but also to leave something for the stage show.

Avenue Q has a few cut songs, as well as a fair number of songs that were written for promotions of the show. These are the cut songs:

"Tear It Up and Throw It Away", which was cut late in the off-Broadway rehearsals. Originally performed early in the first act, between "What Do You Do with a BA in English?" and "If You Were Gay"; Kate is called for jury duty, and Nicky advises her to ignore the summons, pretending it was lost in the mail. ("Your civic duty? Who gives a doody?") Kate tears up the summons and is ticketed for littering. The number was cut during off-Broadway rehearsals because it had no relevance to the plot, and because, according to puppeteer Stephanie D'Abruzzo, there was no judicious way to dispose of the paper scraps until the intermission, nearly a full hour later. The cut came so late that early promotional materials included references to the song, and its main melody can be heard underscoring dialog in "The Money Song" on the original cast recording. It was included on a CD that accompanied the original souvenir program, but not on the cast recording.

"Time". Technically not part of the show, it was a video created for the London production, and originally shown on the on-stage video screens during intermission, just prior to the second act curtain. Nicky sits on the toilet in the men's room at intermission, singing about all the "chores" he is getting done between acts. Several audience members waiting become increasingly annoyed, including British comedian Matt Lucas. The song was cut during early previews for unspecified reasons, but remained on the CD that accompanied the souvenir brochure, and was shown at the final West End performance in October 2010.

"How Much Do the People in Your Neighborhood Make?" A parody on the classic Sesame Street song, "Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood", the song was written very early in the show's history, and dropped when the original television show format was abandoned in favor of a stage production.

Two songs were cut from Spamalot during its debut in Chicago. The first was during the scene in the Witch Village, which included a torch song called "Burn Her!" and was originally performed by Sir Bedevere, The Witch, Sir Robin, Lancelot and Villagers. At the French Castle, "The Cow Song", a parody of a stereotypical film noir/cabaret style, was performed by The Cow and French Citizens. Incidentally, in both songs, Saraa Ramirez, the first actress to play the Lady of the Lake, sung the lead vocals. This resulted in her having six songs in Act One, but no further appearances until scene five in Act Two, for "The Diva's Lament".

The 2017 revival of The Secret Garden drops "There's a Girl", "If I Had a Fine White Horse", "Round Shouldered Man", "Quartet" and "Race You to the Top of the Morning" from the original Broadway production, while adding two new songs, "A Brand New Coat" and "The Man in the Moon".

Pacific Overtures: "Prayers" has Kazuya and Tayama each pleading for some sign of good fortune from the Japanese gods. It was the first number written for the show, and the first to be cut except for a section for the Councilors which was incorporated into "Chrysanthemum Tea" (the final show version, that is; the original draft of that song was much more comedic) and a few minor incidental cues still bear its name. It was included as a bonus track on the 2005 Broadway cast recording.

Theme Parks

"Sooner or Later" from Disneyland's Splash Mountain, originally heard during the rabbit warren segment, was replaced by "Burrow's Lament", a Dark Reprise of "Laughing Place". In turn, the Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland versions of the ride skips the vocal part of "Burrow's Lament" and only uses the alternate instrumental version, when Bre'r Rabbit is being tortured on the final conveyor belt lift. The instrumental of "Sooner or Later" can still be heard in the queue.

Video Games

NES games in general have a lot of these. Because of the way the music in the games is coded, Dummied Out songs will exist but can't even be accessed by Sound Test menus or even Game Genie. It wasn't until NSF Ripping note where you extract the sound code from an NES rom entirely and store it as a file which can be played with a special program became popular that people knew these songs even existed.

For a video game example, the "Singing Mountain" theme from Chrono Trigger is fairly popular. It's still in the game's code and even made it to the game's official soundtrack, but it never plays in-game because the dungeon it was supposed to play in was never finished. There's also a second battle theme which shares a similar fate. "Singing Mountain" plays in a new dungeon for the DS remake, and "Battle (2)" plays in the Arena.

Another video game example can be found in Final Fantasy X. Each of the main characters has his or her own leitmotif, but Wakka's curiously never plays at any point... except the Sphere Theater, which is basically a glorified Sound Test.

The sound test in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 contains a track for the Hidden Palace Zone that was cut from the game during development. In the smartphone ports, Hidden Palace Zone is made available through a secret entrance, but doesn't use that particular track, instead reusing the 2-player Mystic Cave Zone music. A version of the Hidden Palace Zone which does use this song was later added by playing certain songs in the sound test. The Mystic Cave Zone 2 music was Hidden Palace's music in the alpha and beta versions where it is playable, and the unused song is its music in the final where it is available via hacking (albeit with most of the graphics removed). The unused song was intended for a bad ending should the user fail to collect all the chaos emeralds, but was scrapped, with the idea of bad endings being used in Sonic CD instead.

The American version of the original Sega CD version of Sonic the Hedgehog CD has a couple unused Red Book audio tracks on its disc; the first is actually the first CD audio track and sounds like an engine of some sort, while the second is after the title screen and is nothing special as it is simply a duplicate of the title screen theme. These can easily be accessed by putting the disc in a CD player or computer disc drive and playing/ripping the audio tracks.

Shadow the Hedgehog had two themes that were unused and replaced by "All Of Me": "Who I Am" by Magna-Fi and "Broken" by Sins Of A Divine Mother. "Who I Am" was scrapped due to Executive Meddling from the band's record company resulting in it eventually ending up as the first song on their final album, VerseChrousKillMe. "Broken" was scrapped because they could not find the artists name to credit them. "Broken" was the original Neutral-Hero theme but was replaced with "Chosen One" while "Who I Am" was the games theme before being changed for "I Am All Of Me". "Who I Am" still sounds glaringly like it's about Shadow, with lyrics like "This is who I am/Not a shadow of who I want to be" and "You have made me/You can't change me/You don't know me/This is who I am".

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 had a different soundtrack prior to Michael Jackson's involvement. This soundtrack was reused for the original PC port.

Very common in video games where composition often starts before the games scenes and requirements are totally locked down, and where sections are often cut for time and budgetary reasons. Other video game soundtrack CD releases that contain music not used in the game itself include:

There are quite a few unused soundtracks in the Spyro the Dragon games, with most of those being from the first one. They can be heard in-game if you linger in a level long enough.

The fourth game has three: Mid Flute, Andes, and Songa.

Several tracks were cut from the PAL release of Year of the Dragon, including most of the level themes from the final hub world, the final boss, and the speedways. This was mainly done to make room for the voice clips of the various European language, and can still be found in the NTSC and Greatest Hits releases.

In The World Ends with You a number of songs which never made it into the game made it onto the soundtrack regardless, possibly because they didn't want to waste any tracks just because they ran out of room in the game. The ports to mobile and the Nintendo Swtich did eventually find space for the cut songs to be used but several songs that came out in the interim between the original and mobile port were only available in a microtransactions shop, essentially relegated to the same status as the formerly cut songs.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has many songs in its disc that went unused and likely replaced by other songs. Some songs that are remixes of songs from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance like "On Black Wings" (Naesala's theme), Memory of Mom (Mist's theme), and Victory is Near, were also never used in the game. One of the most infamous cut songs is a remix of Alm's Theme #2 from Fire Emblem Gaiden, which implies that the game was going to have Trial Maps like its predecessor as it used a remix version of a song in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. See the soundtrack page in Serenesforest.net to listen to them. Interestingly, one of the songs (Victory Theme 01) is repurposed in the English version of the game where Micaiah destroys the Blood Pact as it was a scene that only appeared in the localization and not the original.

The ROM of Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos has the song "Inevitable", which is not used anywhere in the game, and even stranger, cannot even be heard in the sound test. It is thought to have been intended for the Final Boss, which uses the regular boss music instead.

The soundtrack of the beta version of Cave Story features several tracks that didn't make it into the final game: "Wind Fortress", as well as "Leef", "Rock Org", "People of the Root", "Plant (B)", and "Pier Walk". There were also some variations on music that did appear in the final game: There were two versions of "Meltdown" (the Sand Zone music), and the original "Plantation" theme (alternately translated as just "Cave") was an alternate version of the main theme (rather than being exactly the same).

The song "Organ Smash" on the Iji soundtrack was intended for the game but not used due to Daniel Remar being unable to find a good place to put it.

Banjo-Kazooie. There are four unused songs still in the game data, including twoversions of the Click Clock Wood theme, and something called "Mumbo's Raindance". The most notorious, however, is "Advent", mainly because it sounds totally unlike anything else in the game. Some theorized that it was for the cut level Fungus Forest, but in fact, it's actually left over from very early in development, when the game was still called Project Dream, and the song was meant to be used for a map screen.

Salamander 2 has three songs that were clearly intended to be stage music: "Fire Tripper", "No Future", and "Nervous Break Down". None of them can be normally heard in-game; you'll have to use a utility for listening to arcade ROM music or use the PS1 and PSP ports' sound test modes.

Nearly every arcade Gradius game has unused songs, dating back to an unused song in the original Gradius. that wouldn't see a real appearance until its use as the name entry music in Gradius ReBirth. The latter succeeds the former by 23 years.

The arcade version of Gradius III has the pre-stage dogfight theme from the first game, an alternate Ranking screen theme, and "Maximum Speed" from the second game, which was intended for a stage similar to the high speed zone in the SNES version (which has a different BGM, "Accident Road"), but replaced by the Crystal stage.

The original Salamander/Life Force had several unused songs, some of which were used in the Japanese Updated Re-release (Life Force JP) and the Famicom/NES version.

The fangame Marine Benefit adds The Flower of the Forgotten Kaikeidou. Originally intended for the game's Omniverse spell cards (which are akin to Imperishable Night's last words), the in-game Omniverse instead plays the respective characters' themes for their spell cards instead. A strange decision in itself, but it's particularly egregious with Miyo Amazu, who is a one-shot midboss and therefore doesn't have a theme in the first place.

The Vagrant Story original soundtrack includes "Inside the City Walls", which does not ever play in the game, though fans speculate that it was left out of the game unintentionally. The percussive second half of "Escape" does not play either.

One song from the N64 version (which had MIDI music), "Oblivion", was completely cut from the PC version (which uses Red Book audio), due to audio space limitations, and "Hive of the Mantids" is used in its place. Also, several songs were truncated to fit the CD, eg "Death Marshes" and "Lair of the Blind One's" are missing their epic climaxes.

Metal Gear Solid had "Discovery", a song that presumably would have been associated with the USS Discovery submarine on which Snake enters Shadow Moses (or, more unlikely, to be associated with Dave and Hal). Whatever it is, it doesn't appear in the game, though does show up on the official soundtrack and can be accessed in the Integral release by calling a specific Codec frequency on the Comm Twr bridge.

The Metal Gear Solid 4 website contained voice clips from each of the characters. One of Sunny's was her humming the Metal Gear Solid main theme. Thanks to the plagiarism scandal, she sings a different melody in the final game.

The PC-88 version of the first game contains numerous Dummied Out songs, which can be heard via a hidden Sound Test. "Theme of Adol" was used as the opening theme of the TurboGrafx-16 CD version, and several other songs such as "Chase of Shadow", "Dreaming", "Battle Ground", "Over Drive", "Fair Wind", etc. were used in the PC remakes of Ys I and II

Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys/Mask of the Sun had at least three cut songs, which were included in the Falcom Special Box '95 soundtrack box set. One of these, "Crater", which can also be found Dummied Out in the Mask of the Sun SFC ROM, later saw use in the remake, Ys: Memories of Celceta.

All three arcade games have unused music pieces, including a "Continue?" and "Game Over" cues and a staff roll theme ("After The Battle") in the first game, a short loop in the second game perhaps intensed for the second half of Mission 3 judging by its placement in the ROM, and a BGM in the third game that later got used in the NES version.

Final Fantasy II had a dummied out BGM (which was supposed to be a dungeon theme) "Dungeon" which was still in the game code. Six years later, this very song was enhanced for Final Fantasy VI as the BGM for the town of Jidoor during the World of Ruin. There were also a removed "Airship" theme (presumably removed for being too cheery in a rather depressing game), "Shop" theme, and "Battle Scene 3".

The Medal of Honor OST contains several songs intended for Dummied Out missions, such as "Approaching Colditz Castle", although they were later used in Allied Assault and its expansion packs, or in different missions than they were intended.

Halo 2's OST had the unused songs "Never Surrender" by Nile Rodgers, "Connected" by Hoobastank, and the other three movements of "The Odyssey" by Incubus. "Never Surrender" appeared as an Easter Egg in Halo: Reach, though.

In the Anniversaryre-release of Halo 2, possibly due to licensing difficulties, Incubus's "Follow" and Breaking Benjamin's "Blow Me Away" were replaced with the original compositions "Follow in Flight" and "Breaking the Covenant", respectively. However, "Blow Me Away"'s intro can still be heard during the Mombasa tunnel sequence.

Halo: Combat Evolved also had several outtakes that were released as downloads by Bungie/Microsoft, two of which, "In the Club" and "Tron", were later remastered on the Anniversary soundtrack.

GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 has a Dummied Out music that appears to have been composed for the Jungle stage, which lacks music except for the battle with Xenia. Also, like Perfect Dark mentioned below, several levels have unused alert/action themes.

EarthBound has this, a frankly rather chilling rendition of the cave/dungeon theme from the prequel, that never appears anywhere in the final game. Strangely, it's present in the Game Boy Advance remake as well, though still unused.

The X-Universe series has a weird retroactive example. The latest games have every music file from all the previous games installed with them, but most of them never play in-game.

The arcade version of Super Contra has several unused tracks, one of which ended up being used in stage 5 of the NES port.

Hellsinker have a fair number of tracks hidden in the games files that seem to never have made the final cut. While some of them are incomplete and some just simple remixes of some songs, some however are more complex original songs and remixes. This one for example sounds like it was to be used as a stage theme.

A song known as "Song #65" in Diddy Kong Racing was originally to be used for the Pirate Lagoon course. For whatever reason, the finalized game re-uses the Treasure Caves theme, though the song is still present in the soundtrack as that 65th entry.

BEMANI games are known for having song data that don't appear in the final versions of the games. If you're lucky, the cut song in question may appear in a future game.

The original DanceDanceRevolution has data for two songs that didn't make it to the initial release: "Boys" and "Money". "Boys" ended up debuting properly in DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX, but "Money" wasn't so lucky.

Similarly, "Butterfly (Upswing Mix)" was cut from the first US PlayStationDDR mix, with some of its data being left in, although it later appeared in DDR Extreme 2, and the original mix was in Ultramix 3 and X 2. Other deleted songs included "That's The Way", "Kung Fu Fighting", and "Strictly Business", which never appeared in any US mixes.

beatmania IIDX 19 Lincle has data for the song "FLOWER", which instead made its IIDX debut in beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro.

Undertale has fun with this trope. If you buy the official OST, you'll find a song called "Song that might play when you fight Sans". However, it doesn't appear anywhere in the files for the actual Undertale game, thus it does not play when you fight Sans. The game's official trailer also plays an alternate version of Papyrus's theme, "Bonetrousle", that is also not in the game's files (but is reused in the trailer for the official figurines). A few tracks are in the game's files, but are unused in the game itself, such as "Gaster's Theme" (appropriate for a character who seems to be a deliberate invocation of Dummied Out.)

Being a series that mostly uses licensed music, the Just Dance series has had several scrapped songs throughout its many entries, most likely due to last-minute rights issues. In most cases, remnants of the routines can be found buried in the game files through data mining, and images of several other unused dancers exist with their songs unknown. Other songs were delayed and released on a later game than originally intended. Known cut songs include, by game:

Just Dance 2: "Let's Get It Started" by The Black Eyed Peas

Just Dance 3: "Jungle Drum" by Emiliana Torrini, "Daddy Cool" by Boney M (routine used for a video contest, unplayable)

Just Dance 4: "So Good" by B.o.B, "Respect" by Aretha Franklin

Just Dance 2014: "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey, "Man Down" by Rihanna, "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk (overdubbed by an original song titled "Nitro Bot")

Blue Wish Resurrection has a "bgm" folder with all of the game's music in mp3 format...and an unused track titled "offensive".

Crimzon Clover has the track "Cafe Cri-Clo", which averts this trope at first in the original doujinshi version, where it plays in the in-game shop, but Crimzon Clover World Ignition doesn't play the track at all in the game but still has it on the original soundtrack that's purchasable on Steam.

The first game's sound files, along with unused tracks for existing missions, include a set of music cues assigned to level SP_07, which in the final game is the Boat mission, but judging by the descriptions such as "Outside", "Recreation", "Rooftops", and "Tunnel", they appear to have been composed for a deleted level.

Mirror's Edge: Catalyst was supposed to use CHVRCHES' "Warning Call" as its theme tune, but the group's record label and the developers had a conflict of interest with each other, so it can only be heard on the in-game jukebox and in the pause menu credits, but the main synth progression appears as a Recurring Riff in the underscore as well as in the end credits music, "Catalyst".

Multiple press releases for Elite Beat Agents mentioned "Livin' La Vida Loca" as one of the featured songs, but the song doesn't appear in-game at all. The uneven number of levels (19) and a blank spot on the multiplayer song menu both suggest the song was cut for some reason.

The Sound Test of Yarudora series vol.2: Kisetsu o Dakishimete contains an unused track, Track n°17; given its place in the Sound Test (right between the beginning of Scene 18 and the confrontation scene), that fast-paced track was probably meant to be played during the very short scene in-between, where the protagonist hurriedly rides back to his home. Track n°16, the BGM playing at the beginning of Scene 18, is prolonged to that short scene instead.

"Cascade", "Prospit Dreamers" and "Descend" credit a song known as "Penumbra Phantasm". This song has never been released and may have been abandoned.

When the first four music albums were combined into one compilation album two songs were removed: "Sburban Jungle (Brief Mix)" and "Aggrieve (Violin Redux)". As indicated by the titles, they were remixes of existing songs.

The album "coloUrs and mayhem: Universe A" was the result of a music contest. Two songs were removed after their composer was caught plagiarizing. They were replaced with new songs with the same names.

Any song that hasn't been featured in an album is potentially a song cut from the comic, even if they've been included on albums. Inversely, songs that Andrew Hussie hadn't been able to use before might fit into a later flash, either the song itself, a remix, or included as a theme in a medley.

Web Original

The now-discontinued-due-to-C&D Midnight Channel: The Musical, based on Persona 4, had several songs that were planned but ultimately cut from the final production due to time constraints and lesser plot relevance. Notably, Saki's song 'I Never Got to Tell Him' and Adachi's hopeful reprise "I Got Something" were cut. Incidentally, "100 Point Font", a Valentine's day promo sung by Rise about her unrequited crush on the Protagonist, was ultimately added to the official track list.

The S3M files for Future Crew's 1992 demoUnreal(not to be confused with the later Unreal FPS) contain several unused music cues, including an alternate version of the "Realplasma" music, and two industrial-sounding pieces. Skaven's part of the Second Reality soundtrack also has two unused segments.

Web Videos

In The Nostalgia Critic's Les Misérables review, the song "The Critic Brings It Home" was cut presumably for time reasons. That and Doug somehow made his voice sound like ear-poison.

A full version of Pinkie Pie's "Hop, Skip and a Jump" advice from "Dragonshy", which was shortened for time.

There was also the "original" Cutie Mark Crusaders theme tune, which apparently wasn't deemed bad enough. The composer was so traumatised by having to mutilate his baby that unlike "Hop, Skip and a Jump", it has never been released to fans.

Pinkie's "Piggy Song" was originally a parody of "The Chicken Dance", with more or less the same lyrics as the final song (phrased a bit differently) and an unused bridge verse. The version that was actually used bares no resemblance to "The Chicken Dance", but manages to be equally ridiculous.

Video Example(s):

What Does He Want?

"What Does He Want?" is a song cut from the original broadcast of "Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation", but restored for the extended edition. Here, Candace struggles over what she should give to Jeremy as a Christmas gift.

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What Does He Want?

"What Does He Want?" is a song cut from the original broadcast of "Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation", but restored for the extended edition. Here, Candace struggles over what she should give to Jeremy as a Christmas gift.